NEW INDICTMENT AGAINST KOPP EXPECTED SOON, PROSECUTORS SAY

A new indictment could come within the week accusing James C. Kopp of depraved indifference to human life in his admitted shooting of Amherst physician Barnett A. Slepian and charging him with an additional count of second-degree murder, prosecutors told a judge Tuesday.

As Erie County Judge Michael L. D'Amico concluded a third and final day of testimony at a pretrial witness identification hearing, Erie County prosecutor Joseph J. Marusak told him Kopp could be arraigned on the new indictment as early as this coming Tuesday.

Kopp attorneys Bruce A. Barket and John V. Elmore said there is still a chance Kopp, 48, might testify before the grand jury that was called into session following a Nov. 20 Buffalo News article carrying Kopp's jailhouse confession to the murder of Slepian four years ago.

Barket said "the possibility of him (Kopp) testifying" before the grand jury before it votes on a possible new indictment "is very attractive." But he and Elmore insisted they have yet to decide whether they will take the jailed pro-life activist before the panel.

With D'Amico still pressing for a possible February start of Kopp's state court jury trial, Barket said that by Dec. 30 he and Elmore will either appeal a ruling barring Barket from representing Kopp in his federal court case or ask U.S. Magistrate Judge Hugh B. Scott to reconsider that ruling.

Barket said Kopp for weeks has been without counsel in the federal case due to Scott's Nov. 27 ruling that barred Barket from handling the case because he already represented jailed abortion protester Lorretta C. Marra in a Kopp-related prosecution.

On Dec. 3, Kopp told D'Amico he wants Barket, a veteran Long Island defense attorney and former prosecutor, to represent him in both the state and federal murder trials for the Oct. 23, 1998, sniper shooting of Slepian as the doctor stood in his Amherst kitchen.

Barket Tuesday said he joins with D'Amico and prosecutors in hoping for a February trial. But he and Elmore, a veteran Buffalo defense attorney, noted they still have about 30,000 pages of prosecution documents to review and have yet to get documents that former Kopp lawyers received in the pending federal case.

Tuesday, after the close of the witness identification hearing, D'Amico gave both sides until Jan. 8 to file motions on identification issues and indicated he might conduct another pretrial hearing by mid-January on the seizure of physical evidence.

During Tuesday's hearing, Daniel R. Rich testified that as he conducted the court-ordered lineup in the case last Aug. 29, he personally told all five eyewitnesses to events surrounding the homicide to indicate in writing if they spotted on stage a person "involved" in events linked to the murder.

Rich, who ran hundreds of such lineups as head of the Buffalo Police Evidence Collection Unit and is about to retire as an investigator for the district attorney's office, admitted one of the five eyewitnesses failed to identify anyone at the lineup session.

Rich, Amherst Police Lt. Joseph LaCorte and DA Investigator Joseph O. Denecke all told the judge that despite defense complaints about law enforcement "taint" in the identification process before Kopp's published confession, the lineup witnesses were all barred from talking to each other.

Barket argued Tuesday that the photograph of Kopp which the FBI has admitted releasing to the media shortly after the physician's slaying made it clear to the general public - including witnesses whose testimony he and Elmore may seek to quash - that Kopp was "accused of the murder."

Rich told the judge he conducted the Kopp lineup session - which included two police officers among the five stand-ins - the same way he conducted all lineups he staged during his 13 years as head of the police evidence unit.

Following the hearing Tuesday, lawyers representing The Buffalo News and WGRZ-TV had a closed-chambers meeting with the judge, prosecutor and Kopp's attorneys. Afterwards, they all declined comment on the issues raised during that meeting.

JURY INDICTS 2 ON CHARGE OF HAVING AIDED KOPP
The Buffalo News LINK
Dan Herbeck, News Staff Reporter
December 11, 2002
     A federal grand jury in New York City has indicted Loretta C. Marra and Dennis Malvasi for allegedly helping James C. Kopp avoid capture after the 1998 slaying of an Amherst abortion provider.
     A Buffalo attorney for Malvasi said Tuesday that he still hopes that a "fair and reasonable" plea deal can be worked out with federal prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York.
     "This case has taken so many twists and turns that I wouldn't hazard a guess on what will happen in the future," said Malvasi's lawyer, Thomas J. Eoannou. "I still hope we can work out something that is fair to these two people."
     The new indictment announced in New York by U.S. Attorney Roslynn R. Mauskopf adds little new information to the charges that were initially filed against Marra and Malvasi after Kopp's arrest in Dinan, France, in late March 2001.
     Kopp, a 48-year-old pro-life activist, is accused of the October 1998 sniper murder of Dr. Barnett A. Slepian at Slepian's Amherst home. In an interview with The Buffalo News last month, Kopp admitted to the shooting, but claimed he was only trying to injure Slepian.
     Marra, 39, and Malvasi, 52, abortion protesters from Brooklyn, are accused of sending money and information to Kopp while he was on the run from charges filed against him by the FBI and the Erie County district attorney's office.
     The two suspects are now accused of felony counts of conspiracy, harboring a known fugitive and conspiracy to possess false identification documents.
     "Between Nov. 4, 1998, and March 29, 2001, Marra and Malvasi provided Kopp with money, advice and support while Kopp was a fugitive from justice, living in Ireland, France and elsewhere," Mauskopf said.
     "Marra and Malvasi communicated with Kopp by telephone, letter and electronic mail under assumed names; held in safekeeping various papers belonging to Kopp, including identification documents; and aided Kopp for his planned covert return to the United States. In addition, Marra and Malvasi contacted third parties to determine whether they would be willing to provide assistance to Kopp."
     The case has taken a highly unusual path through the federal courts.
     The Brooklyn suspects were prepared to take a guilty plea in Buffalo before U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara, but the plea deal fell apart last August, when Arcara complained that federal prosecutors were going too easy on Marra and Malvasi.
     Arcara insisted that the 33-month prison terms sought in the plea deals were not sufficient punishment for helping Kopp. The arrangement would have allowed Marra and Malvasi to plead guilty to one felony conspiracy charge.
     On Sept. 24, prosecutors dropped the Buffalo charges and filed new charges in New York City, which prompted Arcara to accuse them of "judge-shopping."
     Prosecutors and defense lawyers have vehemently denied the judge-shopping allegations.
     Eoannou and Marra's attorney, Bruce A. Barket, feel their clients have already been sufficiently punished. They said their clients had no idea when they were helping Kopp that he was responsible for the shooting of Slepian.
     Eoannou said Tuesday that he hopes New York City prosecutors will honor the plea deal that was offered in August by prosecutors in Buffalo. He noted that the two have been in jail since the day of Kopp's arrest.
     "The U.S. Justice Department should speak with one voice," Eoannou said. "They should not bounce the lives of these two people around like ping-pong balls."
     But there were harsh words directed toward Marra and Malvasi in the press statement issued Tuesday by Mauskopf and Kevin P. Donovan, an assistant director in charge of the FBI.
     "The defendants provided aid and comfort and financial support to a fugitive wanted for a vicious murder," Donovan said, "and there seems little doubt that Kopp would not have eluded capture for as long as he did without the assistance of Marra and Malvasi."
     Mauskopf said the two Brooklyn defendants "went to great lengths" to aid Kopp after he was charged with "murdering Dr. Slepian in cold blood."

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