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An anti-abortion activist admitted Friday that she drove James C. Kopp to Mexico in late 1998 when he was wanted for questioning in the murder of Dr. Barnett A. Slepian. Jennifer Rock, 32, said at a court hearing that she helped Kopp who now admits he shot the Amherst abortion provider because she was sure he was the victim of a U.S. Justice Department setup. "I believed he was innocent," said Rock, who came to know Kopp through the right-to-life movement. That trip to Mexico started Kopp on a 52-month trek as a fugitive in England, Scotland, Ireland and France....

James C. Kopp may have confessed - with his lawyer present - to the killing of Dr. Barnett A. Slepian, but you wouldn't know it by the court battles that very same attorney is waging. Kopp's attorney is challenging the legality of three FBI searches, a new indictment based on his November confession and whether authorities are violating Kopp's constitutional rights by prosecuting him in both state and federal courts. And the prosecutor in the case said that, by itself, Kopp's confession to The Buffalo News would only prove first-degree manslaughter, not the second-degree murder that he's been charged with...

They call themselves the Army of God, but if Wednesday's protest for accused murderer James C. Kopp is any indication, they'd have trouble filling out a military squad, let alone an army. The dozen or so abortion foes who gathered in front of the Erie County Holding Center, where Kopp is jailed, are united in their belief that violence to stop abortions is justified. Outnumbered by twice as many counterdemonstrators, they held signs and chanted support for Kopp, the admitted killer of Dr. Barnett A. Slepian. Kopp said he shot Slepian so he could perform no more abortions. "The message...

Local, state and federal law enforcement will be ready to protect not only Buffalo's abortion clinic, but also local hospitals and gay bars, when anti-abortion radicals come to town next week to rally in support of admitted killer James C. Kopp. Harold Litwin, chief of operations for the Buffalo Police Department, said Tuesday that protests - planned by individuals linked to the radical Army of God - may not be limited to the city's Womenservices Clinic. "It's a real threat," Litwin said. "We know that members of Army of God have criminal records and there are some with some serious...

James C. Kopp has lost another legal battle in his bid to have a Long Island defense attorney who strongly opposes legalized abortion represent him in his federal court case. In a terse two-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara affirmed a magistrate judge's earlier decision barring attorney Bruce A. Barket from representing Kopp in federal court. Kopp, 48, who has admitted he killed Dr. Barnett A. Slepian of Amherst, faces a murder trial in Erie County Court. He also faces a later federal court trial on charges that he killed Slepian and violated a federal law guaranteeing access...

WASHINGTON - Anti-abortion radicals plan to rally in Buffalo on Jan. 22 in support of admitted killer James C. Kopp - and to photograph people visiting the city's abortion clinic and post those pictures on the Internet. Jonathan O'Toole, a reporter for the Christian Gallery News Web site, said Tuesday that he is organizing the rally, which will coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. The rally, coming the month before Kopp's trial is expected to begin, will aim to sway potential jurors into thinking that Kopp's October 1998 shooting of Dr. Barnett Slepian was...

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...

For now, at least, James C. Kopp has a new attorney for his case in federal court. In a recent ruling, U.S. Magistrate Judge Hugh B. Scott allowed Buffalo attorney Paul J. Cambria Jr. to withdraw from the case. Scott assigned federal public defender William G. Clauss to represent Kopp on federal charges relating to the 1998 slaying of Dr. Barnett A. Slepian, an abortion provider, in Amherst. "I have met with Jim Kopp, and, at this point, I am his attorney of record at federal court," Clauss said Monday. "I'm glad to be off the case," Cambria said. "I...

In three Canadian cities and a Rochester suburb, abortion providers were shot under similar circumstances. Authorities are trying to prove that James C. Kopp was the shooter. VANCOUVER, British Columbia - A few strands of hair found inside a ski mask provide the DNA evidence that links James C. Kopp to the sniper attack that ended the medical career of abortion provider Dr. Hugh Short in Hamilton, Ont. That's the clearest piece of evidence police have tying Kopp - who admits killing Dr. Barnett A. Slepian of Amherst in 1998 - to a series of four earlier shootings that authorities...

The more you look at James C. Kopp, the less he looks like a loner. Authorities say they have no proof that anyone joined Kopp in plotting the October 1998 murder of Dr. Barnett A. Slepian of Amherst, or that a wide conspiracy aided Kopp during his 21/2 years on the lam. Nevertheless, investigators and abortion rights advocates said Kopp had help, maybe before the shooting and certainly afterward. "There must have been a support network that moved him to Mexico to Heathrow to Manchester to Scotland to Ireland," and finally to France, where he was captured in March 2001,...

James C. Kopp Tuesday told a judge the charges lodged against him for his admitted murder of Amherst physician Barnett A. Slepian are really about what he called "the murder of children" by abortion providers. Kopp, speaking almost inaudibly as Slepian's widow and several FBI agents sat in court, also said he feels "the children should be represented in the court," making clear his hopes to make his trials the centerpiece of a renewed debate about abortion. Erie County Judge Michael L. D'Amico told Kopp, 48, to put his contentions in writing. The judge told him he assumed his quiet...

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...

WASHINGTON - Federal laws aimed at cracking down on mobsters are now being used against abortion opponents and animal rights protesters - and at least some Supreme Court justices seem to wonder if free speech is being damaged in the process. Several justices raised that concern Wednesday as the high court heard arguments in Scheidler v. National Organization for Women - a case technically about legal limits on abortion protests. In reality, the case has evolved into something far bigger: a high-court test of where free speech ends and extortion or racketeering begins. With anti-globalization protesters taking to the streets...

James C. Kopp may testify next week before the Erie County grand jury that today was expected to begin considering whether to indict him on an additional murder charge in the sniper slaying of Amherst physician Barnett A. Slepian. Deputy District Attorney Joseph J. Marusak told Erie County Judge Michael L. D'Amico that he has scheduled a Dec. 11 session of the newly empaneled grand jury to hear from Kopp, providing that he chooses to make an appearance. Although Marusak told the judge that Kopp's attorneys have notified him in writing that he plans to testify before the grand jury,...

The Long Island attorney picked by James C. Kopp to represent him in both his federal and state court trials said he will ask a federal magistrate judge to reconsider his refusal to let him serve in the federal case. Bruce A. Barket insisted Monday he will be Kopp's principal attorney in both cases stemming from Kopp's admitted fatal shooting of Amherst physician Barnett A. Slepian. His vow came moments after he unsuccessfully urged an Erie County Court judge to hold District Attorney Frank J. Clark in contempt of court for allegedly violating a gag order in the cases. Last...

A week after James C. Kopp's confession in The Buffalo News that he fatally shot Dr. Barnett A. Slepian, the judge in his murder trial Tuesday issued a gag order on all attorneys, investigators and Kopp himself. Erie County Judge Michael L. D'Amico issued the order at the request of the district attorney's office, but Kopp's attorney, Bruce A. Barket, said he agreed with its terms. "The only thing we can talk about is what happens in open court," Deputy District Attorney Joseph J. Marusak said after Tuesday's court session. Marusak submitted a lengthy legal memorandum to the court outlining...

John V. Elmore, a veteran Buffalo attorney specializing in criminal defense and civil rights, is joining the defense team for anti-abortion crusader James C. Kopp. Elmore, 46, confirmed Monday that he will be the local counsel for the accused sniper in his upcoming murder case in Erie County Court. He will assist Long Island attorney Bruce A. Barket, an outspoken opponent of abortion. There are two points of irony concerning Elmore's entry into the case - his own father was shot by a sniper in 1974, and one of his recent clients was a Buffalo man who pleaded guilty to...

An autopsy report could back James C. Kopp's claim that the bullet he fired at Dr. Barnett A. Slepian took a "crazy ricochet" that killed the Amherst abortion provider. But it may not prove his contention that he was only trying to wound Slepian. And firearms experts say that if Kopp's true purpose was only to wound Slepian, the high-powered Russian assault rifle he used was the wrong weapon, with the wrong ammunition. Was Kopp telling the truth last week, when he sat down with two reporters from The Buffalo News and insisted that he never meant to kill Slepian?...

Some were stunned, many were outraged, and others felt betrayed. There was nearly universal condemnation from the mainstream pro-life community Wednesday over James C. Kopp's admission that he shot and killed Dr. Barnett A. Slepian four years ago. Those condemnations would appear to throw into question whether Kopp and his attorney Bruce A. Barket's strategy of using his upcoming murder trial as a national referendum on abortion will be successful. In distancing themselves from Kopp, those identifying themselves as pro-life said it is wrong to use violence against doctors who provide abortions. "It is inconsistent for anyone in the pro-life...

James C. Kopp has answered the question he asked reporters covering his extradition hearing in France nearly 18 months ago. "Who killed Dr. Slepian?" Kopp responded as the press shouted questions at him in a courthouse in Rennes, France. "That's the only question you should ask." Kopp has now told The Buffalo News that he killed Dr. Barnett A. Slepian. Just as federal agents charged, he said he waited in the woods behind Kopp's Amherst home on Oct. 23, 1998, and fired a single shot from a Soviet assault rifle. Kopp's jailhouse confession, three months before his trial on murder...