Posted on 01/03/2003 3:21:57 PM PST by Marianne
Donations to James C. Kopp's defense fund dropped sharply after he confessed in November to killing Dr. Barnett A. Slepian, so now taxpayers will pick up the tab for his attorney in federal court, court officials said Thursday.
William G. Clauss, the region's chief federal public defender, was assigned to Kopp's case after U.S. Magistrate Judge Hugh B. Scott was informed that the donations stopped following Kopp's confession to The Buffalo News on Nov. 20.
Scott said in court papers that he learned of the decline in donations from Paul J. Cambria Jr., Kopp's former attorney, during a court appearance Dec. 16.
"Cambria states that the funds were not donated to Kopp personally; that the funds received have been exhausted; that no additional funds have been received since Kopp's alleged confession was publicized," Scott wrote.
Scott said Cambria's statement about the defense fund was one of the main reasons why he assigned the case to Clauss, a public defender.
For more than a year, abortion foes have been seeking donations to Kopp's defense on a Web site. The amount of money donated to the defense fund never has been revealed.
Kopp, 48, faces state murder charges in Erie County Court and related charges in federal court in the October 1998 sniper slaying of Slepian, an Amherst gynecologist-obstetrician who performed abortions.
Cambria declined Thursday to discuss Kopp's finances, but he pointed out that he had requested to withdraw from the case in October, before Kopp's confession and before the donations dried up.
"The money drying up had nothing to do with me leaving the case," Cambria said.
Kopp's attorneys in the state murder case are not public defenders, although Kopp has qualified for some public funding for defense expenses.
Some abortion opponents continue to donate cash to fund Kopp's defense in the murder case, according to John V. Elmore, one of his attorneys.
Elmore said his co-counsel in that case, Bruce A. Barket of Long Island, still is receiving some donations.
"These donations come from people who are motivated to protect unborn children. Bruce is strongly pro-life and always has been. He has contacts in the pro-life community, and there is some money that has come in," Elmore said. "I would suggest that some people are still willing to donate because Bruce has made it very clear that he is going to raise the issue of abortion in Jim's trial."
(ahem) I'm not feeling very enthusiastic about snipers lately...
I think we can safely say that the anti-abortion Kopp IS NOT PRO-LIFE.
He loses the right to use that term as soon as he starts killing people.
It would be like someone who is anti-slavery, making a slave of a plantation owner. It is a huge contradiction.
Well, d'oh!
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