U.S.

Did Kopp Ride Underground Railroad?

March 30, 2001 / 12:38 PM EST / CBS

Authorities believe the couple arrested Thursday in New York for allegedly helping anti-abortion fugitive James C. Kopp avoid capture may be part of a well-organized network of committed abortion foes.

Loretta Claire Marra, 37, and Dennis John Malvasi, 51, were ordered held without bail on charges of conspiring to harbor a felon. A federal complaint alleges they rented an apartment under an alias as a safe house for Kopp, 46, who is wanted in the slaying of a Buffalo-area abortion provider.

Now law enforcement is looking beyond the couple.

In fact, authorities believe Marra and Malvasi are part of an "underground railroad" of radical anti-abortion activists in the U.S. and abroad who aided Kopp, reports CBS News' Stephanie Lambidakis.

"Mr. Kopp did not leave the country without assistance. He did not remain abroad without assistance," said Hardrick Crawford Jr., acting special agent in charge of the Buffalo FBI office.

After allegedly gunning down Dr. Barnett Slepian, 52, authorities say Kopp fled overseas and led a solitary life with the help of allies in New York and elsewhere.

Law enforcement sources said Kopp was harbored and aided by allies in the radical, violent edge of the anti-abortion movement during a flight that led him though upstate New York, Mexico, Virginia, Canada and Europe.

British police believe Kopp was in contact with sympathizers throughout England, Ireland and Scotland, reports CBS News Correspondent Richard Roth.

In Ireland, Kopp prayed regularly at a church in a Dublin suburb. While the Catholic congregation is known for its conservatism, it's not clear that they aided Kopp or even knew his true identity.

U.S. law enforcement sources tell CBS News that priests at the church knew who he was and sympathized with what he did, but Kopp was known to congregants by the alias "Timothy O'Brian."

However, asked if the people of the parish knew who Kopp was, a young priest said, "No certainly not, otherwise I would think we would have told the police."

But Kopp's life as a fugitive came to an end Thursday, when he was arrested outside a post office in Dinan, France.

The couple arrested on Thursday in Brooklyn has deep ties to the anti-abortion movement.

Malvasi, a Marine veteran of the Vietnam war, had pleaded guilty in 1987 to dynamiting a New York abortion clinic and planting a bomb that was defused before it exploded at another. He was sentenced to seven years in prison, but was paroled after serving five and a half, authorities said on Thursday.

Marra has known Kopp since at least 1990, when both were arrested and jailed in Vermont for an anti-abortion protest, according to the 16-page federal complaint. They were arrested together again twice in the following two years.

Marra had a receipt in her pocket for a package Kopp picked up in France just before his arrest, Reuters quotes plice sources as saying.

FBI agents intercepted a series of cryptic messages Malvasi and Marra left for Kopp in an e-mail account, the complaint said. Kopp left his own messages asking them to send him enough money to sneak back into the United States through Montreal.

FBI agent Joel Mercer said Kopp was preparing to pick up a package from New York containing $300 at the time of his arrest.

The couple, operating under the aliases of Ted Barnes and Joyce Maier, communicated with Kopp using a Yahoo e-mail account on which the three used the "drafts" box for messages, thus avoiding any transmissions.

On Friday they wrote a message to Kopp saying, "We are convinced 100 percent that the mere fact of you being undiagnosed enough to stand on the street and make phone calls is complete proof that you are not diagnosed at all."

The word diagnosed was code for the threat of capture. "Can't wait to see you," the message continued. "Get as much rest as you need here and we can likely get any prescription medications you need."

While on the run, Kopp obtained driver's licenses and passports, changed aliases frequently, lost some weight and assumed a more clean-cut appearance, authorities said. Mercer said he believed Kopp had been in Europe for some time.

Kopp had been living in Ireland for about a year, staying in hostels and performing odd jobs before leaving for France on March 12, with Irish police closing in, the FBI said.

Authorities are looking into the network they believe aided Kopp and said other arrests are possible.