Posted on 10/19/2002 7:25:57 PM PDT by Marianne
A federal judge in Buffalo reluctantly agreed late Thursday to dismiss felony charges against a man and woman from Brooklyn who admit that they helped James C. Kopp avoid capture after the 1998 murder of Dr. Barnett A. Slepian.
The action taken by District Judge Richard J. Arcara clears the way for Kopp supporters Loretta Marra and Dennis Malvasi to go to New York City and take a plea deal comparable to one that Arcara criticized and refused to approve in August.
Arcara agreed Thursday to a request from prosecutors to dismiss charges of obstructing justice and aiding a fugitive, which were filed against the Brooklyn couple shortly after Kopp's capture in France in late March 2001.
The judge's decision clears the way for federal prosecutors to move forward - this time, in a New York City federal court - with a plea deal that would require Marra and Malvasi to spend no more than 33 months in prison.
Arcara said he believes the two defendants deserve more prison time than that for helping Kopp "evade prosecution for almost two years."
The judge's six-page decision contained some harsh criticism for prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's office in Buffalo, whom he accused of "judge shopping."
"Having been unsuccessful in its efforts to get this Court to go along with the proposed plea agreements, the government is seeking to have this matter brought before another judge, in hopes he or she will merely rubber-stamp the plea deals this Court found unacceptable," Arcara wrote. "This is a blatant case of judge shopping."
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen M. Mehltretter denied the judge shopping allegation and said her office is thankful for Arcara's decision.
"The actions that were taken in this case were tactical decisions, solely to protect the public interest in these cases and the James Kopp case," Mehltretter said. "These were tactical decisions, not judge shopping."
The allegation was also denied by Marra's attorney, Bruce A. Barket of Long Island.
"I disagree with a lot of what the judge says in his decision, but the important thing is, he made the right decision," Barket said.
"It's blatantly unfair to call this judge shopping. We're taking a pro-life case down to New York City, and I can't imagine a much worse place to do that. Judge Arcara makes it sound like we're going off to the candy store, but there's nothing easy about litigating a case in New York City."
Despite the statements made by Arcara in his decision, Barket said, it has not yet been decided whether Marra and Malvasi will take plea deals, or seek trials in New York City. He said that decision could take a month or more to make.
Barket added: "In no way can you call this a big win for Marra and Malvasi. They're still in jail."
Malvasi's attorney, Thomas Eoannou, was busy with another legal matter Thursday and could not be reached for comment.
Arcara said he had little choice but to dismiss the local charges against Marra and Malvasi. Even if he had refused to dismiss the charges, the judge said, federal prosecutors could have simply declined to pursue the cases.
Developments over the past few months have been unusual, because plea deals that are agreed to by both prosecutors and defendants are rarely rejected by federal judges in Buffalo.
On Aug. 21, a visibly angry Arcara scolded Mehltretter and both defense lawyers, accusing them of trying to "manipulate" the justice system to arrange lenient sentences for the Brooklyn couple.
He also expressed skepticism at Mehltretter's contention in court that there is no evidence to prove that Marra and Malvasi had no idea whether Kopp was involved in the sniper murder of Slepian. Kopp, 47, has pleaded not guilty in that case.
During the court discussion in August, Arcara said he was troubled by a letter Kopp allegedly sent to Marra while he was on the run, indicating that Kopp was thinking he might "come out of retirement" and commit a "Ronald Reagan."
Mehltretter told the judge that authorities believe "Ronald Reagan" was a reference to shooting abortion providers, but she added that investigators have come up with no definitive proof about the meaning of the statement.
In August, Arcara rejected the plea deals, saying, "I find that the public good would not be served by the acceptance of this plea agreement."
On Sept. 23, prosecutors filed court papers asking Arcara to dismiss the March 2001 charges against Marra and Malvasi. They also filed a new, greatly reduced charge against the two defendants in New York City. Arcara did not agree to dismiss the 2001 charges until late Thursday.
"The defendants are charged with helping . . . Kopp evade prosecution for almost two years," Arcara wrote.
"The government has also represented that it has evidence that the defendants were seeking to bring Kopp back to the United States, to help him find work, and to place him in touch with other individuals who advocate violence against abortion providers. The Court found that the proposed plea agreements failed to reflect the seriousness of the offenses charged."
Arcara wrote that he is skeptical of Mehltretter's contention that, if the Marra and Malvasi cases went to trial, it would cause public disclosure that could later harm prosecution of Kopp.
"Whether the prosecution of this case would have had an adverse effect on the Kopp prosecution may never be known," Arcara wrote. "What is certain, however, is that the manipulative tactics pursued in this case will cause immeasurable damage to the public's confidence of the judicial system."
Barket said he strongly disagrees with the conclusions reached by Arcara. "At the very worst, we're talking about two people who offered to help out a friend," Barket said of Marra and Malvasi.
How but in the corrupt heart of a liberal does one make the leap from "doing a Ronald Reagan" to shooting abortionists??? That makes about as much sense to me as claiming "doing an Abraham Lincoln" means shooting at Confederate malcontents.
No, it is a murder case, and a case of obstructing justice and aiding a fugitive.
The first man is named Dennis John Malvasi. He was born in 1950, his mother’s seventh child. She had her first baby at age 15 and bore 12 children by three different men. Until age 14, Dennis lived in a Catholic orphanage; then he came home to Brooklyn, New York, to a slum neighborhood of racial warfare between whites, blacks, and Hispanics. He enlisted in the Marines at age 17 (faking parental consent), was shipped to Vietnam, and conducted 505 patrols, 214 ambushes, and eight extensive sweep-and-clear operations around Da Nang. He took heavy fire and relished it: “I felt really alive, really wanted. The baddest people I knew were in front and they came shooting at me. I felt kind of honored.”
After his discharge in 1970, he became an itinerant actor on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, was involved in street crime, charged with assault, sentenced, put on probation, arrested again, and wound up serving two years in jail. When he was released, he drifted through various odd jobs-as mailroom clerk, paramedic, licensed pyrotechnician. He joined the Vietnam Veterans Ensemble Theater Company, but persisted in shady extralegal activities. He became a fugitive in 1985 on a six-weapons felony charge. “Stuff like that doesn’t bother me,” he said. “Actually, I don’t feel good unless I have someone hunting me down. It makes me feel alive. It makes me feel wanted.”
He became involved in a Roman Catholic cult with a particular dedication to Saint Benedict and a fanatic aversion to abortion. In February 1987, after a two-year manhunt involving 300 federal agents and city detectives and a public appeal by Cardinal O’Connor, Archbishop of the New York Catholic Diocese, Dennis John Malvasi turned himself in to stand trial on the charge of bombing the Manhattan Women’s Medical Center (December 10, 1985), the Eastern Women’s Center (October 29, 1986), the Queens Women’s Medical Office (November 11, 1986), and a Planned Parenthood center (December 14, 1986). The bomb in the last attack-made with 15 sticks of dynamite and a sophisticated assembly of blasting cap, timer, and battery-was defused at the last minute, but was potent enough to have collapsed the entire façade of the building and to have broken windows blocks away. Tucked in with the dynamite was a medal of Saint Benedict.
Malvasi spoke of abortions as “kills,” in Vietnam troop parlance, and was indignant that “when I came back from Vietnam they called me a baby-killer.” His defense hinged on whether his wartime experience “warped him to the point of insanity.” He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to seven years, a reduced sentence because of his promise to Cardinal O’Connor “not to take part in bombings again.”
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