48 Hours - The Psychiatrist and the Selfie - Encore

Episode Date: November 6, 2022

A psychiatrist faces judgment after she’s accused of brainwashing her cousin to kill. "48 Hours" correspondent Peter Van Sant has the latest on the case.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits, and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it.

There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial, and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. What's the first step to growing your business? Getting people to notice you. But how do you do that? Two words. Constant contact. Your struggle with expensive, slow, and unmeasurable approaches to marketing your business is over. With constant contact, get email marketing that helps you create and send the perfect email to every customer. Connect with over 2 billion people on social media

with an all-in-one tool for posting and sharing, and create, promote, and manage your events with ease, all in one place. Join the millions of small businesses that trust Constant Contact with their marketing success. So get going and growing trust Constant Contact with their marketing success. So get going and growing with Constant Contact today. Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial.

ConstantContact.ca This is definitely one of the stranger cases I've covered. It seems like it comes right out of a novel. On November 12, 2012, Jake Nolan set out to the office and home of Dr. Michael Weiss. Jake had with him a duffel bag with a massive sledgehammer, a steak knife, zip ties. And he's walking through the streets of Manhattan with this. When you walked into Dr. Michael Weiss's office with that duffel bag, with the weapons that were inside, what did you intend to do? You know, I intended to kill him.

This is not a whodunit. He did what he was accused of doing. He intended to kill him. This is not a whodunit. He did what he was accused of doing. But the big question was, why? I saw Jake Nolan brainwashed by Dr. Pamela Buckbinder. An ivy-trained psychiatrist. She's brilliant. I would have done anything for Pamela.

It happens so slowly that you don't really recognize this growing feeling inside of you that one day you wake up and say, I'll kill for this woman. By the end of this manipulation by Dr. Bookbinder, Jake Nolan had become weaponized to attack Dr. Weiss, the man with whom she had been fighting over custody of her son. They hated each other, and in turn she made me hate him. She had already told me that she wanted me to hit him over the head, playing like, you know, Maxwell's Silver Hammer by the Beatles repeatedly in the house.

Beatles repeatedly in the house. Jake Nolan suffered from bipolar disorder. He had these learning problems. He had personality problems. Pamela took someone who she knew was severely mentally ill, and she morphed me into whatever she wanted me to be. And I obeyed, just like a puppet. She used him for her own benefit. She sacrificed him. His office door was open, and I see Michael sitting in a chair.

I think this is really when I became fully psychotic. I don't buy Jake's story that he was brainwashed and manipulated. He knew exactly what he was doing. And do you believe that each step of the way Jake could have made the decision to leave? Of course he could have. And Dr. Bookbinder claims that she had no involvement at all in this, that anything Jake Nolan did, he did completely on his own. 911, what where's emergency? Hi, I can hear someone out in my hallway screaming in pain,

but I don't know what's going on out there, and I'm afraid to go out. And what was so odd about this is he didn't try to flee. Jake Nolan starts snapping selfies of himself covered in blood. I mean, who would possibly snap a selfie of themselves right after they tried to murder someone? Субтитры создавал DimaTorzok There's never going to be a night I don't fall asleep feeling awful for what I've done. To this day, Jake Nolan insists his mind was not his own when he set out to kill Dr. Michael Weiss at his office on November 12, 2012.

The knife was in my pocket and the sledgehammer was over my shoulders. He sees the sledgehammer and charges at me and I reach for the knife. Here I am with this knife and the guy's bleeding and I'm bleeding and I'm thinking, oh my God, this is terrifying. It's as if I woke up from a bad dream. After Jake stabbed him, Dr. Weiss fought back furiously. Both men ended up in the hallway of the Manhattan high-rise. 911, raise emergency. This guy's screaming like crazy for help. Both men were rushed to the hospital,

where Jake was placed under arrest for attempted murder and handcuffed to his bed. In the weeks ahead, Jake's bizarre story unfolded. His claim that he had been manipulated to kill by his own cousin, psychiatrist Pamela Bookbinder. My experience with Pamela, looking back, was incredibly frightening. Incredibly frightening. Jake's target that day, Michael Weiss, was Pamela's ex-boyfriend and another psychiatrist. Do you believe he was brainwashed? Yes.

To be honest, I try and come in here as little as possible because it's just too many memories. Debbie and Jim Nolan, Jake's parents, are devastated. He is basically a really good kid who doesn't have a mean bone in his body. Hey, Jake. good kid who doesn't have a mean bone in his body. When we met Jake in the summer of 2016, he seemed rational. I've been on meds now for over a year and a half that have finally worked for me. But he says that wasn't always the case. Jake's parents insist that to understand how and why their then 20-year-old son could have been conditioned to kill, you have to go back to his childhood.

Jake was our third and our youngest child. He was an absolute delight. He was gifted, he was smart, he liked to invent things. But Jake also had problems. By the age of five, he was diagnosed with ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. There was something with him that just wasn't the same as everybody else. And we started to notice significant changes in his personality and his demeanor around the ages of 14, 15. What did you see?

He went through these large mood swings. Still, Jake had moments of brilliance while in high school in Miami. He made news after he won a prestigious contest, co-inventing a study tool app for iPhones called Flash Me. And then a month later, I couldn't get out of bed. My parents bribed me with everything to get out of bed. Please get out of bed. Please get out of bed, Jake. You've got to go to school. Please go to school today.

Don't miss another day of school. Jake was then diagnosed with depression and anxiety. These episodes worsened to the point where at the age of 17, Jake threatened to kill himself. He got a butcher knife from downstairs and he took it upstairs to his room and he said he was going to kill himself. We were terrified. Jake was hospitalized and was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is a severe and chronic mental illness that's characterized by severe mood swings. Psychiatrist Dr. Sasha Bardet has evaluated Jake for the defense. Swings that go from deep, dark suicidal depressions to periods of incredible elation, grandiose ideas, poor judgment.

He's a mess. He's such a prisoner of his own mind that he can't get anywhere in life. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of killing myself. By the time Jake was in college, doctors had prescribed some 30 medications to treat him, with little success. Some of these medications change brain chemistry, do they not? Well, these are powerful psychotropic medications. His disorder, his problems were so profound, sometimes he's taking four, five, six medications at once. Jake admits he was also doing illegal drugs and drinking, barely making it to class. The Nolans thought their prayers had been answered when Dr. Pamela Bookbinder, Debbie's own niece, offered to help. We thought this was great. I adored Pam.

You trusted her. I trusted her with my most prized possession, my child. The plan? Jake would live part-time with Pamela in her Manhattan apartment. She would give him therapy sessions and monitor his meds. In return, she proposed he help take care of her then four-year-old son, Calder, in spite of Jake's mental illness. Pamela and I had formed a relationship when I was really young. I mean, this is my cousin, this is someone I really knew. And I entrust everything into this one woman. I mean, this woman is going to save my life.

By all accounts, the plan seemed to be working. I thought he was very happy, and I thought he was quite stable. So you guys must have felt everything's coming together here. Thank you. Finally. Thank you. Right? But the Nolans now say sending their son to live with Pamela was the biggest mistake they have ever made.

It's a total horrible nightmare. To hear more of the 911 calls, join us on Facebook at 48 Hours. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military, and when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music.

Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing The Best Idea yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bolder risk takers who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? Or Jack, that the idea for the McDonald's Happy Meal first came from a mom in Guatemala?

From Pez dispensers to Levi's 501s to Air Jordans, discover the surprising stories of the most viral products. Plus, we guarantee that after listening, you're going to dominate your next dinner party. So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+. It's just the best idea yet.

When Jake Nolan went to live with his psychiatrist cousin, Dr. Pamela Bookbinder, he had no idea he'd end up on the front lines of a physical and psychological war. The relationship between Dr. Bookbinder and Dr. Weiss was very toxic from the outset. Reporter Rebecca Rosenberg has covered the case for the New York Post. The relationship was on again, off again. There were allegations of domestic violence on both sides. It definitely got physical. Roland Acevedo is an attorney for Dr. Michael Weiss. Is it true that Pam once attacked Michael with broken glass? Roland Acevedo is an attorney for Dr. Michael Weiss.

Is it true that Pam once attacked Michael with broken glass? She was arrested and charged with an assault. He received stitches. I mean, there's physical proof that he was attacked. Is it true that Michael Weiss has also been arrested in the course of this war with Pam? Yes. Pamela contended that Michael threatened her or attempted to assault her. In each incident the charges were dismissed, but the war of the psychiatrists moved on to another battlefield, the courtroom, as Pamela and Michael fought over the custody of their son. These are two psychiatrists. Couldn't they talk it out?

There was no communication. But back during the times when he and Pamela were communicating big time, Michael Weiss attended family parties, including Jake's bar mitzvah. Well, Pamela and I just want to wish you congratulations on your bar mitzvah. We're both so happy for you. We were inspired by all of the speeches about opportunity and charm and character, and we think you have them all. And that makes it even more incredible that Jake would target him. This is a man who respected me and who I respected greatly. Michael and Pamela never married and broke up for good soon after their son Calder was born. Ready?

When Calder was four, Pamela asked Jake to be her child's godfather, shortly before she took Jake in. Jake's mother is convinced that is when Pamela began to manipulate his mind. Jake had been feeling so bad about himself, and here, all of a sudden, I'm so important to Calder. Everything I do has to be right. This was a kid that I loved more than life. Jake wants a normal life. Defense psychiatrist Sasha Bardet says Pamela knew how to give Jake the life he craved. He wants to be a successful, respected family man with a nuclear family and a happy life.

There's a photograph of the three of you in bed, basically in your underwear. What should we take from that picture? I guess that just goes to show you the level of comfort that I really felt there. It was not unusual in the morning for her to invite me into bed with Calder and I and to share that familiar moment, you know, really feel like a family together.

But Dr. Bardet finds these images deeply troubling. When you think that you're seeing pictures of essentially a patient and his psychiatrist, it's really horrific. It's really creepy. Just as troubling for Jake's family were text messages discovered on his cell phone. Let me read to you some of the texts that Pam Bookbinder sent to Jake. family were text messages discovered on his cell phone. Let me read to you some of the texts that Pam Bookbinder sent to Jake. You're just the most fun person to love. You're so beautiful. She'd call him lovey, sweet Jay. You are remarkable. You are brilliant.

I have so many thoughts about you. Well, this is almost sickening. There was never any romantic or sexual relationship ever between these two people. So what this is, is all mental manipulation. I miss you terribly, she would say when you were away. That sounds romantic. You know, it does. I don't know what her intentions were to this day. I wouldn't be able to tell you. And as Pamela was apparently building Jake up, he says she was tearing Michael Weiss apart, claiming Michael was refusing to pay Calder's child support and worse. She had me convinced that he was being molested at his father's home.

How many times did she say this? Was this repeated over and over? Oh, this was every day. Has Michael Weiss ever, ever abused his son in any way? Absolutely not. Michael worships that child. Jake, what real evidence did you have that Michael was sexually abusing his son? There was no evidence. But at the time, Jake says,

that's how Pamela was able to pull him into the plot to kill Michael Weiss. Part of the indoctrination process was to get Jake to participate in developing the plan. And the plan, if you believe Jake, was horrific. Pamela was determined for me to torture Michael before killing him. She wanted me to inject him with some, you know, poisonous chemicals. She wanted to burn him alive in front of a group of people.

Jake's story is dramatic, but is it true? Despite Jake's accusations, he was the only one charged. But Michael Weiss sued Dr. Bookbinder for the attack, and in court papers, she calls the claims against her utterly baseless and states, I never asked Mr. Nolan to attack or harm Mr. Weiss. Dr. Bookbinder also claims that there's no smoking gun here. There's no evidence of emails or text messages that show that she and Jake plotted this together. You can't deny the footage that shows her in Home Depot buying a sledgehammer. Jake insists this surveillance video at a Home Depot in New York City proves his claims.

That's Pamela standing next to him, paying for the very tool that police would find the next morning on the floor of Michael Weiss's office. Jake, there is no one that really disputes that you suffer from mental illness. But could you have another problem as well? Could you be a sociopath? No, I could not. Had I never met Pamela Bookbinder, this wouldn't be my story. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty?

Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list.

She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informants' Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still avert it.

It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones and for almost two years I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn trials I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely,

Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. or Spotify. As Jake Nolan's eyes opened on the morning of November 12, 2012, the day he was supposed to kill Michael Weiss, he says he wasn't alone. Pamela was there in bed,

rubbing my back, telling me how much she loved me, that I was a savior, that I was the greatest person ever, that no one else understood her. Just the night before, Pamela had bought this sledgehammer at a Home Depot in New York. That is Pamela Bookbinder paying for the sledgehammer. She's right there. She has cash in her hand. With plans, Jake claims, of having him bash her ex-boyfriend in the head. You know, I intended to kill him. Jake says that Pamela's lovey-dovey mood quickly changed as she allegedly packed a duffel bag with weapons. She was hysterical, crying tears as she put the sledgehammer into a duffel bag with a kitchen knife. Like she's packing a bag to head off to school, except this is to head off to a murder.

Exactly. And there was one more item that was vital to the scheme. The night before, she had provided me with the map and had to get into his apartment. She handed me that. This map, which Pamela drew herself, showed the multiple entrances of Michael Weiss's building. Michael's attorney, Roland Acevedo. Do you believe essentially this was a battle plan map? I believe it was a map that Jake was provided to allow him to get access to Dr. Weiss's apartment without going through the normal security measures.

Pamela says she never gave Jake the knife and that the map was given to Jake to help care for Calder. It had the daycare where he was going. It had Dr. Weiss's building. Jake says Pamela said goodbye that morning with just one goal in mind. Today is the day. Life is going to be so much better after Michael is, she used the word terminated, after Michael is terminated. Clutching that hand-drawn map, Jake headed to Michael's midtown Manhattan high-rise. He kind of scoped out the building on different sides. It had two separate entrances.

Entered through the business entrance. Jake signed in, writing that he was heading to a tutoring center in the building called Bright Kids. It was marked on the map. He didn't even bother using an alias. I signed in with my own name. Remember, I was willing to die for this woman. I wasn't trying to hide anything. Jake went straight to the 12th floor

and walked in on Michael in the middle of a session. Jake left the office and waited in a stairwell while Michael finished with the patient. What are you thinking to yourself? What's going through your head? I think I was really nervous. I think I wanted to back out, What are you thinking to yourself? What's going through your head? I think I was really nervous. I think I wanted to back out, but I didn't have a means to do it because I couldn't go back to Pamela without this done. I felt like I had no choice. After the patient left, Jake asked Michael for some financial forms for Calder School.

Pamela claims picking up those forms was the only reason Jake was there. But Jake says it was all a ruse to distract Michael while Jake went to the restroom to prepare. I grabbed the sledgehammer. I put the knife in my pocket. From here on out, it's, it's, I remember bits and pieces. But according to Michael Weiss's attorney, Michael remembers it all too well.

Jake came out of a bathroom in Michael's office and hit him with a sledgehammer. Michael managed to duck just in time, missing the full brunt of the 10-pound tool. Still, the sledgehammer made contact with his shoulder. That's when Michael says Jake reached for the knife. That's when I first stabbed Michael Weiss. And then from there on out, it was just, it was a fight. And then he stabbed Michael seven or eight times in various places. The stomach, the back, the chest. Michael, who's 6'3 and 205 pounds, managed to overpower Jake. On the ground, standing up, you know, I got stabbed multiple times.

I thought this, I thought thought someone was bound to die. The two men stumbled into the hallway where neighbors heard the commotion. I think it's a psychologist. He might have had a client who went nuts. Good morning, my hand caller. Patient breathing. Yeah, but I got a lot of blood. You're losing a lot of blood.

Then, as he sat on the floor bleeding, Jake lifted his cell phone and took that selfie. Why did you take a selfie? You know, we were sitting right next to each other, and I was reporting back to Pamela, like, what do I do next? Jake says Pamela didn't respond. A short time later at the hospital, Jake tried texting her again. This is what you wrote. In hospital, please come. Michael bleeding badly. Same. I walked into office. He stabbed me with my knife in the heart. This time Pamela answered with a single word. Where?

There was no plan for after the attack. I think it was Pamela's plan to just dismiss me and like, oh, well, he tried to kill him. He lost, you know, try again later. I mean, I really believe it's her plan to try again later. Hospital records say Jake was in a manic state after the attack. Pamela eventually showed up at the ER, but was not allowed to see Jake. I was in full-blown psychotic episode. I was heavily medicated on morphine. Michael Weiss suffered multiple cuts to his upper torso and legs.

He was stitched up and released from the hospital. Jake was still recovering from his own wounds to his chest and hand when the reality of his arrest for attempted murder hit him. Could Jake have backed out of the attack? See more of the crime scene photos at 48hours.com. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder?

I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. After his arrest for attempted murder, Jake Nolan spent four days recovering in the hospital. He then appeared before a judge and was freed on $200,000 bail pending trial. Jake was allowed to fly home to live with his parents outside of Miami. What would you have said to Calder one day if he asked you, why did you kill my father? I don't know. I gave everything for this child. I was willing to kill someone for this child.

That alone can only show how sorry I feel when he finds out about this later on in life. But what of Pamela Bookbinder? Soon after the attack, Michael sued for custody of their son, claiming Pamela was the mastermind. evidence in that case, including the Home Depot images, and granted Michael Weiss full custody of Calder and barred Pamela from any contact for five years. The evidence showed, and the family court agreed, that Pamela was involved in the plan or plot to attack and kill Michael. Despite the evidence presented in family court, Pamela was still not criminally charged in the attack. Why not? The district attorney's office will not comment, but Michael Weiss's attorney thinks part of the problem is the key accuser in this case. Jacob, because he contends

that he has this history of mental illness, is perhaps not the most reliable witness for the prosecution. Jake spent much of his time awaiting trial in and out of treatment centers for both his mental problems and drug and alcohol addictions. Despite those efforts, his life almost came to a tragic end in May 2015. What happened that caused you to be in this hospital bed? I tried to kill myself. I tried to take my own life. This time, Jake ended up in a coma after poisoning himself.

This was probably the worst day of my life because they told us they didn't think Jake was going to make it. Finally, in March 2016, three and a half years after the attack, Jake's trial gets underway in New York. The prosecution portrayed Jake as kind of a spoiled rich kid. Just one of many challenges for the defense. Jake Nolan was a very unreliable narrator of this event. For one thing, it wasn't until weeks after the attack that Jake claimed Pamela had manipulated him. Another problem? He gave at least three different versions of what happened.

Each was meant to cast him in the most innocent light possible. In one version, Jake tried to put the blame on Michael Weiss. When the first responders showed up, he immediately pointed the finger at Dr. Weiss and said, he stabbed me. In another account, Jake told investigators he never swung the sledgehammer. This was a big hammer. I couldn't even lift the thing up. Jake claims he only brought the sledgehammer and knife because he was afraid of Michael. Perhaps most stunning of all, a third version.

He claims that Dr. Weiss pulled the sledgehammer out of his bag and attacked him first with it. So that really doesn't make any sense. I mean, how would Dr. Weiss even know that the sledgehammer is in the bag? Jake has said he had been convinced the attack on Michael was the only way to save Calder. But at trial, prosecutors hinted at another motive. But at trial, prosecutors hinted at another motive. Michael Weiss had taken out a $1.5 million life insurance policy. The beneficiary was his son, who probably at the time was three or four years old.

But there was a catch. Just three days before the attack, Michael agreed to make Pamela the policy's irrevocable trustee. What does that mean in English? Irrevocable means can't be taken back. So if Michael dies? If Michael passed away, the child would get the $1.5 million, but she would be the person that controlled the money for the child. Jake insisted he had no clue before the attack that money may have been involved.

I had no idea. Pamela never mentioned that to me. Her plan was for you to kill him. But the most damning evidence came from Jake himself. The prosecution's psychiatrist interviewed Jake before trial, and clips from the exam were played to jurors. In one, a shockingly frank discussion about another item Pamela bought at Home Depot. What was it zip-tied for?

She wanted me to, like, torture Michael, which I didn't tell her, but I wasn't down to do that. So you were down to kill, but not torture? Yeah. Okay. What did she't down to do that. So you were down to kill but not torture? Yeah. Okay. What did she want you to do to torture him? She wanted me to cut off his balls, she said. That was a line too far for you?

Yeah. How come? I don't know. I've never hurt anyone before. The prosecution saw this as a stunning admission. On tape, at least, it appears Jake was a willing participant in planning the attack and could draw a line when he wanted to. The crux of the prosecution's argument here is that this is not some babbling idiot that didn't know which way was up.

I think I was in control up to a degree, but the deal was to kill Michael Weiss. The deal wasn't to torture Michael Weiss. It might seem like Jake is splitting hairs, but one of Jake's lawyers, Stephen Brownstein, says that's exactly how Jake's mind was working. In fact, it's why he and his legal team argue a risky defense, diminished capacity. You're going to have to admit that your client did the crime, but his capacity to establish the intent, the motive to commit that crime, he lacked, and therefore he should be found not guilty. I understand that the prosecution feels that clearly Jake never had a gun to his head.

In my opinion, psychologically speaking, he did. Dr. Sasha Bardet, who testified for the defense at trial, says Pamela had replaced Jake's free will with her own. It's very much like a cult where there is a shaping of the person's thought processes to meet the cult's ideals. It's a small cult. It has two people in it.

There's the cult leader, Pamela Bookbinder, and the cult member, Jake Nolan. Jake never takes the stand. Pamela Bookbinder never even set foot in the courtroom. Neither side called her to testify.

In March of 2016, after a two-week trial, the jury began its deliberations. In less than an hour... The jury comes back. We have reached a verdict. Guilty. Guilty of attempted murder. It's unjust. I'm no harm to society. And a little over three months later, the judge describes the attack as an act of extreme brutality and violence and sentences Jake Nolan to nine and a half years in prison. You're in just such shock. I was like, somebody just crushed me from top to bottom,

just totally took my heart right out of me. And what of Michael Weiss, the man Jake Nolan would have killed if the murder plot had succeeded? He's been traumatized by this. I know what I did was very serious, but there is also another party that needs to take responsibility, too. And that person is? Pamela Bookbinder. And her role in this sordid case is about to take...

Let's wait until she comes down. ...a dramatic turn. Pamela Bookbinder, Peter Van Sant from 48 Hours. No, she's not. I have a simple question. Why did you buy that sledgehammer? Pamela Bookbinder, the most talked about woman during Jake Nolan's trial, had always managed to elude the public.

But we caught up with Pamela about four months after Jake Nolan was sentenced. I have a simple question. Why did you buy that sledgehammer? You know what? You can answer that question. Were you going to do some home improvement or were you buying a murder weapon? Out of her face. I can touch it. Get it out of her face.

Pamela, you can answer that question. But on October 19, 2017, almost five years after Michael Weiss was attacked, the law finally caught up with Dr. Pamela Bookbinder. Bookbinder was arrested at a friend's house outside Syracuse, New York. She was charged with second-degree attempted murder and first-degree attempted assault. and first-degree attempted assault. The Manhattan District Attorney accused Bookbinder of masterminding the plot to send Jake Nolan to murder her ex-boyfriend and the father of her son, Michael Weiss.

At the time, Jake Nolan would not comment on Pamela Bookbinder's arrest, but Michael Weiss's attorney did. I was not surprised when she was indicted and arrested. The prosecutor's office said months ago during the Nolan trial that they thought she was involved. And I think the evidence against her is significant. Pamela is innocent. I'm telling you that. Pamela Bookbinder hired two top New York defense attorneys, Ronald Fischetti and Eric Fromms.

Pamela Bookbinder had nothing to do with that. Who say that this video of Bookbinder buying that sledgehammer is just a sideshow. Pamela Bookbinder is an educated psychiatrist, not Wile E. Coyote. She didn't plan to orchestrate a murder with a sledgehammer is just a sideshow. Pamela Buckbinder is an educated psychiatrist, not Wile E. Coyote. She didn't plan to orchestrate a murder with a sledgehammer that the man couldn't pick up. Buckbinder's attorneys argued before two judges

that their client should be granted bail, and her family offered to put up a $1.5 million bond to guarantee she wouldn't run off. This despite the fact that when she was arrested, she had in her possession her passport, birth certificate, and her son Calder's expired passport. The entire world has fallen on this woman periodically, methodically over the last five years. And what did she do? She engaged counsel. She engaged a bondsman.

She stayed around and made no attempts to flee. Her attorneys contend that the case has essentially been solved and that Jake Nolan is the sole perpetrator. He admitted everything. When you walked into Dr. Michael Weiss's office with that duffel bag, with the weapons that were inside, what did you intend to do? You know, I intended to kill him.

Bookbinder's legal team later pointed to what they say is an incriminating new piece of evidence found buried in their legal file. A note allegedly written by Jake Nolan to his mother, Debbie, after the attack in 2012 as he recovered in the hospital. It reads, Pamela has nothing to do with this. Pamela has nothing to do with this. This man acted completely on his own, so it's a very, very crucial piece of evidence. Remember, Jake's defense team said he wrote this letter while he was in what his doctors called a manic state and heavily medicated. That note probably can't be admitted into evidence in any event because it's hearsay. After the judge heard these arguments, he refused to grant Bookbinder bail. She was ordered held in New York's notorious Rikers Island Jail,

where she remained for five years through legal wrangling and the pandemic. for five years through legal wrangling and the pandemic. Then on September 7th, 2022, in a pretrial hearing, she made a stunning announcement. She accepted a deal to spend 11 years in prison in exchange for pleading guilty to attempted assault and a lesser charge in connection with Dr. Weiss's attack, seemingly bringing her case to a close. But just one month later, Bookbinder turned her routine sentencing on its head, with her lawyers telling Judge Farber that she wanted to withdraw her plea. She claimed on the day she agreed to the deal, she was exposed to mace on Rikers Island. She did not take her medication and she inadvertently got a contact high when someone

was smoking drugs on her bus ride to court. But Judge Thomas Farber would have none of it. He ordered the plea deal to stand and the sentencing to continue. Dr. Weiss showed up to make a victim's impact statement. He did not want to be recorded while he read his remarks, telling the court that he suffers from PTSD and that he believes Bookbinder has so much hatred for him that she will do anything in her power to harm him, even after she is released from prison. Prosecutor Joel Seidemann was next, and he did not hold back. I think it's necessary to make the record straight. The defendant tried to have Dr. Michael Weiss murdered.

She hated his guts. She sought to destroy him because Michael Weiss murdered. She hated his guts. She sought to destroy him because of their failed relationship. She stood to control $1.5 million in life insurance on his life in the name of his son. Bookbinder's attorney had heard enough. I have an objection, Your Honor. It has nothing to do with the underlying allegations

in this case. It's a sentencing, not a lynching. I understand, Mr. Franz, but I don't control what the DA says it's sentencing. And Seidemann kept going. She's on video. All of her genius in terms of academic genius didn't mean that she could outwit the NYPD, who immediately went to Home Depot when they saw the sledgehammer and they knew where it came from. And she signed Jacob Nolan with a map.

Bookbinder's lawyer finally had his chance to speak. Well, that was a rather unpleasant experience following a negotiated disposition. The bottom line is her pleading guilty is not a license to step on her throat and just say whatever you want. That's an injustice. She stands ready for sentence, Your Honor. Ms. Popper, I do. You can speak if you wish to. You don't have to. She was brief. If there was one true statement Mr. Seidman said, I missed it.

Judge Farber had the final say. There can be no doubt that if you plot to bash somebody's head in with a sledgehammer, that the intent is to cause his death. He then reminded everyone that he presided over Jacob Nolan's trial back in 2017. The compelling and powerful evidence at that trial supported Mr. Nolan's account that Ms. Buckbinder planned to brutally murder Dr. Weiss. Farber then sentenced Bookbinder to serve 11 years in prison, and he also issued an order of protection for Dr. Weiss. And just before officers took Bookbinder away, she turned to her family and friends who blew kisses at her.

Defense attorney Monica Nejetame says that in 2027, Pamela Bookbinder will be free to start her life over and even reach out to her son. There's no question about her love for her son. A son with secrets. He just lied to everybody. His parents vanish. You know, cars go off the road. Things happen. What happened to the Haldersons?

Not making any sense. It's taking weirder and weirder turns. Nobody saw this coming. 48 Hours, next on CBS. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.