Someone Knows Something - S7 E3: The Informant

Episode Date: May 16, 2022

David interviews key members of the Canadian/U.S. police task force formed to find the person who shot Canadian abortion providers and killed Dr. Barnett Slepian. Do they think the shooter acted alone? What will the man behind the FBI code name Jack Steele, a key confidential informant, reveal? For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/someone-knows-something-the-abortion-wars-transcripts-listen-1.6736516

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We'd love to talk business. 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us. And contact Desjardins today. We'd love to talk business. This is a CBC Podcast. The following episode contains mature subject matter. Please take care. There was a killing of a doctor. I didn't read about it. I didn't know anything about it. A killing that Jack Steele says he didn't know anything about.

A doctor. That's okay, sure, but wait a minute. Wait a minute. There was a guy I know. I mean, I know him. It wasn't Jack Steele's idea to become an FBI informant, but one day in 1999, Steele met a New York cop named Julio Vasquez, who seemed to casually mention that if Steele heard anything interesting about an abortion provider shot in Amherst, to come to him. So you know someone? I said, yeah.

He was blowing blowing abortion clinics. He was blowing up abortion clinics. Jack Steele is not this man's real name, but he was close at the time to at least one person with a violent history in the anti-abortion movement, and it caught the interest of the FBI. They pulled over in this unmarked SUV and he pulls over and Julio goes to the right side

and I go in the back, introduces me to him and the first thing he says out his mouth is, how would you like to have a million dollars? I'm David Ridgen and this is Someone Knows Something, Season 7, Episode 3, The Informant. Alright, I'm waiting for Joe LaCourte to arrive here in

Island Park, which is a nice little park behind the municipal buildings here, in Amherst, which is a suburb of Buffalo. Detective Lieutenant Joe LaCourte oversaw the detective bureau of the Amherst police force at the time of Dr. Slepian's murder. I want to see if American police on the Slepian case had any leads on people who might have been helping James Cobb.

A man who must be LeCourte approaches up the path, tall and thin, comfortably formal with hair swept straight back. Detective LeCourte. I'm David. Detective LeCourt. Hi, I'm David. Nice to see you. Hey, how's it going? We sit at a picnic table out of the sun. Shortly after Dr. Slepian was killed,

LeCourt was called to the case and joined a task force made up of Canadian and American police who had already been looking at the previous abortion provider shootings north and south of the border. and American police, who had already been looking at the previous abortion provider shootings, north and south of the border. Together, they began sifting evidence between the cases to see if any connections could be made. This was one of our most major cases for a small town, and I was thrown into the mix immediately. FBI shows up, ATF shows up, Saturday morning, bright and early, Canadian authorities show up.

And at that time, we find out that the Canadians and the FBI were following a suspect that day and they had lost them. And they thought that that was the suspect who had shot Dr. Slepian. So now, all day this morning, Saturday, we're playing catch-up with the information they already have as to what's going on, the other doctors that have been shot. This is new information to me that I've not seen or heard anywhere. Is it possible that before Dr. Slepian was shot, the task force looking at the Canadian cases

was already looking at a threatening individual that wasn't Cobb? And was this person a Canadian? And who was that? You know what, I honestly don't remember his name. You're talking to the Canadians. They were more involved with him. We really never had anything to do with him. And who was that? You know what, I honestly don't remember his name. You're talking to the Canadians. They were more involved with him. We really never had anything to do with him.

Okay, okay. They eliminated him, you know, right away by where he was that morning. Hamilton police were the primary investigators of the November 1995 shooting of Dr. Hugh Short in Ancaster, Ontario. I've contacted them to learn more about their investigation and I'll be speaking with the detectives assigned to the case. In the meantime, they tell me they don't recall that Canadian and U.S. task force members were following a suspect before Dr. Slepian was shot. According to Joe LeCourt, it didn't take long for the redoubled task force to connect Kopp with the Slepian case.

But Kopp was named a material witness fairly soon into the case. By Monday, we had his name. And where'd you get that name? One of our residents in Amherst, who was a jogger, went out every morning, left her house, saw his car. It was an old, beat-up car, and it had Vermont plates on it, and saw him, and he got out of the car and he pretended to be a jogger and it just didn't look right to her. When she left, the car was

there. She wrote down the plate number. And was anybody ever seen with him? Was there ever that the jogger or the witness ever see another person with James? No, not to my recollection. And I was kind of involved in this long before that because I was deeply involved in the original demonstrations when we were arresting 300 and 400 people at a time. So we dealt with the pro-lifers. So a lot of these names popped up just as demonstrators. There was no violence other than blocking the doors.

Detective Joe LaCourte, in his time, says he met a lot of these protesters on the abortion scene, so I press him for any particular names, but he can't seem to come up with any. Nevertheless, he also believed, then and now, that James Kopp must have had someone helping him for the shooting of Dr. Slepian. There's no doubt in our minds that someone helped him in this area get out of the area. I don't remember ever finding them or anyone admitting to it, but he claims he left the area right away that night. But whether that's true or not, you know, I don't know.

In fact, according to court documents, Kopp left the area soon after. On November 4th, 1998, the media announced Kopp to be a material witness to the murder of Dr. Slepian. But FBI believed Kopp was the main suspect. Eventually, Kopp would be on the FBI's most wanted list, and he was on the run. On November 5th, he was driven to a Mexican airport just across the U.S. border by a close friend who had protested with him. The friend's name was Jennifer Rock, and Rock also returned over $7,000 to Kopp that she had been holding for him. Rock also gave Kopp a fake West Virginia driver's license. Rock was promised immunity from prosecution for her testimony at one of Cop's trials, and I'll eventually be trying to contact her. Rock has always insisted that she didn't do anything wrong,

but what is clear is that Cop had help, at least during his escape, and was able to somehow network and communicate his needs. LaCourte doesn't have access to his files or notes, and I think he's given me all he has, but I'm curious about how the abortion issue is playing out now in his old stomping grounds. It's been quiet. I haven't heard of a demonstration in this area. I've been retired now for going on seven years.

No more mass demonstrations. To continue looking into Kopp and those that might have been in his circle, I head into Buffalo to visit with a former FBI agent. Mr. Tolbert, how are you? I'm Dave Ridgen from CBC. Ridgen, nice to meet you. How long were you with the FBI? Almost 22 years. Bernard Bernie Tolbert, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Buffalo Division at the time of Dr. Slepian's shooting.

...in charge of the FBI, Bernard Tober. James Kopp is responsible for the death of Dr. Barnett Slepian last October. We in law enforcement, we will find this man. We may find him here in Western New York. We may find him someplace in the United States. We may find him someplace internationally, but law enforcement will find him. Back in the present, Bernie leads me to his backyard garden, where we settle on a porch.

At 73, he's athletic-looking with a wary but warm smile and close-cropped, receding hair. And like Joe LaCourte, Tolbert joined the already existing abortion shootings task force with the Canadian police. Despite their pooling of resources, I suspect that the FBI may have more in their files than the local police. Before the shooting, we had advised Dr. Slepian and other doctors in the area because these shootings occurred around Remembrance Day, which is a Canadian holiday.

I think some of the entire Veterans Day. There had been one in Rochester. There had been some in Canada. So we kind of sent an advisory notice, be careful that these kinds of things happen. Never, ever in a thousand years expected or would have anticipated something happening. And how quickly did Canadian police start coming down and talking to you?

I'd say almost immediately. They had a real strong interest so we shared what we had with the Canadian authorities. Obviously there was a need for cooperation and collaboration. We didn't know as much as they knew so we could see how it fit in you know what we might glean from that that would help us. Once we were clearly focused on Copp and we got his place and we started pulling records, you know, how many times did he go to Canada? And we knew every time he crossed the bridge, we knew what lane he crossed in, what time he crossed in and all that. And it was several times. Oh yes. Was there a feeling in your office that Copp was responsible for the Canadian shootings? I think, yes.

I think that based on the fact that the evidence pointed that way and we had tracked his travels, and if he wasn't the shooter, I think you could make a very good case that he was involved somehow in either assisting, helping to coordinate, and those kinds of things. There was a very thorough vetting of other things Copp might have been involved in. I don't know that to this day we know all of what he did. We had a pretty good idea. We knew of all of his arrests and things he had done, you know, making the locks so people

could protest and chain themselves to fences and hamper law enforcement. But were there other things he did? Perhaps were there other, even murders that he committed? That's possible. I think, as I recall, he never admitted to anything else. He admitted to this one eventually, but he never admitted to any others. But I would not be willing to bet my mortgage

that he didn't do another one. It is a thought that's probably worthwhile looking at. Was Kopp or others in the anti-abortion movement connected to other attacks on abortion providers in the United States, and that perhaps, somehow, other shootings weren't identified for what they were as anti-abortion acts. Do you think it could happen again in today's America? Absolutely. I only wish that we could have prevented it. I only wish that we had

somehow had something that would have led us to keeping it from happening. That would have been the best thing. But since he did do it, I'm glad that we got him. And I know that he had a lot of people helping him, and we were aware of some of those people. There were some who were helping him that we didn't know about. Two very notable people that were helping him that we were well aware of and we had an interest in,

Brad Amara and Dennis Malvesi. And of course, Dennis Malvesi and Rademara were charged and convicted. Two names I've heard before. Malvesi and Mara, convicted in the early 2000s for the federal charge of conspiracy to harbor unknown fugitive for helping cop when he was on the run in the wake of the for the federal charge of conspiracy to harbor unknown fugitive for helping cop when he was on the run in the wake of the Slepian murder, and for that they served only about two and a half years. From what I can tell, Loretta Mara was born in 1963 in New Jersey and raised Catholic and had a long history of anti-abortion protesting. Her mother was French and her dad was a philosophy professor at Fordham University

and once ran for U.S. president, fronting a political party he concocted called the Right to Life. He wasn't elected. Malvesi was a previously convicted abortion clinic bomber who got seven years for it in the 1980s. Malvesi had an eighth grade education and he and Loretta Mara lived together in Brooklyn. It's known from court documents that by October 1997, Mara and Malvesi were under surveillance for their anti-abortion activities. In 1998, around the same time as Kopp became a suspect in Dr. Slepian's murder, Mara took on a new fake identity.

This is Jim's arrest in Missouri and Texas. Amanda Robb and I looking through her files. Usually they're like trespass, disturbing the peace. What are these ones? Anyway, that's those old things. This is just about, like, here's Loretta's with Jim. They were in jail in Vermont in 90. In 1989, at the age of 26, Loretta Mara suddenly started appearing in the papers.

And soon after that, as seen through a trail of FBI and trial documents, her path seems to have started crossing with James Kopp. That July, she was arrested blockading an abortion clinic in Binghamton, New York. Binghamton was also the original headquarters of Operation Rescue, where James Kopp served as a liaison of sorts to the Catholic community. In 1991, she and James Kopp intricately locked themselves together to 100 pounds of concrete in the waiting room of a Long Island, New York clinic. She and Kopp were also both arrested in Rome, Italy in 1992. Around that same time, Loretta met Dennis Malvesi. Dennis got out of prison for blowing up the clinics in New York.

Malvasi. And then Loretta enters his life at that time. Malvasi's life. Yeah. This is just background on Malvasi when he was bombing clinics. In 1994, Loretta Mara then apparently married Dennis Malvesi, who was then in his mid-forties. Nice wheels. Hey!

I paid for a Kia. Amanda's put her files away and I'm standing in front of a hotel in Florida as she pulls her rental sports car around. I'm not used to being a passenger. We're heading to the swank gated community where one of the key FBI informants in the cases against Mara, Malvesi and Kopp lives. Mr. Jack Steele, a pseudonym he invented for dealing with the FBI. He knew Loretta Mara and Dennis Malvesi personally. Maybe Steele, an insider here speaking more freely than ever before about his role as an FBI informant, can help our cause.

So, in the discussions we're having, the only thing I would ask... We arrive at an actual gate and we're buzzed through by a very thorough guard. I have my questions and agenda for Steele, but as we'll see, he has his own self-serving reasons for talking to me. The destination is on your left. Thank you. when the time comes. Because at Desjardins Business, we speak the same language you do, business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us and contact Desjardins today. We'd love to talk business. Help turn off hesitation, turn off doubt, turn off fears.

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Hi, how are you? I'm David. Very nice to meet you, David. Nice to meet you, too. I got buddies there. If you want to take your shoes off, you're welcome. However, you know, you want to do this. I'll take the shoes off. I'm always with a shoes off guy.

Cool, cool. Okay. That'd be beautiful. What a nice area you've got here. Steele's bungalow looks like nobody has ever lived here. Stark, white, and tiled like a staged home ready for real estate viewings. The only indicator of activity inside are the perfect trays of snacks laid out and long tables filled with carefully arranged documents. Cheeses and fruits have never been prepared for me in any interview I've ever done. Well, you know, however you want to do this.

When you're hungry, we'll eat. Let's have a seat over here. Okay. You know, whatever you like. Centrally located hand sanitizer, I like it. Steele himself looks like a burlier version of Pablo Picasso, wearing old jeans and a faded red T-shirt with Brooklyn written in white letters across the front.

He contrasts with the hard surfaces of his house that make anything I try recording here sound echoey, but we finally get down to it in the biggest room next to the documents. The way I got involved in the cop case was very unusual. Since I know Dennis Malvesi, in the 60s we used to hang around. Just did what we did when we were young. Hung around. In East New York, part of Brooklyn.

And down the line, everyone went to military. I was drafted. He volunteered. He got early volunteer, 17. Somebody had to sign up for him, and he went to Marines. Dennis Malvesi served in the Marines in the U.S. War in Vietnam as a field radio operator and pyrotechnics expert. Steele says that after Malvesi got out of the military, that Malvesi started acting, and according to the New York Times, as Malvesi used stage names, he also used a number of aliases in real life. To avoid police, after an indictment on weapons charges, Malvesi learned to use a beeper to take calls and to pick up his mail at different bars. He was a conservative Catholic who became interested in the abortion issue in

part via a religious group he joined known as Our Lady of the Roses. In December 1985, Malvesi started bombing abortion clinics. In 1985 and 1986, he was active using dynamite in different configurations. Hundreds of FBI agents were reportedly assigned to his case, but they didn't catch up to him until later in 1987 when Malvesi turned himself in after a plea from the Archbishop of New York. He pleaded guilty to bombing one clinic, attempting to bomb another, and to making a threatening telephone call. Charges were dropped and two other bombings. Once Malvesi got out of prison, Steele began to help him out financially because, he says, Malvesi was down on his luck.

Okay, so then you reconnect with Dennis after he gets out of prison? Yeah, reconnect with Dennis and take him under my wing. And when he came out, he didn't live far on a daily basis. Whenever we had a chance, our common denominator was food, food, and food. No girls yet. So I would pick him up. He didn't have a car, and I would pick him up. He didn't have a car and I would pay for everything. And that's the camaraderie that we had together. No, no abortion, no, nothing that was even spoken about.

He didn't talk to you about those issues? No, his private life, I left alone. He accepted that. We never spoke of abortions, never, except when 1998, while we're living our life and talking and eating, that's when the FBI comes in, followed me. As a matter of fact, I want to show you a picture. Steele's very stream of consciousness, non-sequitur, rabbit hole, return to original thought, I try to focus him on the documents he has laid out. What is all this here, anyway? What are you looking at here?

Documents. Those are documents. I have a lot of stuff here that I could prove that I have my credibility. Steele finally settles into telling me a story about the first time he met Mara, who is calling herself Rose at this point, one of several pseudonyms she was known to use. Steele says Malvesi introduced him to Mara. One day he shows up with a girl, and he's driving this automobile, rotten, corroded

automobile that he had and she comes out with a long dress. I was like, what the hell is that? What did he pick up from? Her name was Rose, Rose at that time. And I don't know what I was doing. Steele claims he didn't know at this point that Mara had been arrested at abortion clinic protests, and he also claims that he didn't know James Cobb.

Fast forward, and Loretta Mara and Dennis Malvesi end up getting married, and children start appearing eventually too. Then Steele adds an intriguing detail. She gave both birth birth in Canada. The way I know she went to Canada is they travel upstate, trampoline river there or lake or something. That's how I know she went to Canada because she told me. That's where she gave birth.

Where in Canada? Where? That's a good question. I would never really ask. You never heard that? You never heard where? No, as a matter of fact, she had good friends, family, friends of a family which her father, William Mara, had good friends in Canada. To where, I couldn't tell you because no one has told me.

She comes with a second baby, and I said, Danny, what is this? Yeah, she went away, she had a baby. I never saw the woman pregnant. Never saw a woman pregnant. As many times she showed up, she might have been pregnant, but I guess I didn't see it. You know, you could tell. So the second baby shows up and now she has two kids. Court documents confirm that Mara traveled to Canada to give birth to both of her children. Her second child was born in April 1999. This would be about six months after James Kopp fled the U.S. in the wake of Dr. Slepian's murder.

Mara named her son James Charles, Kopp's first and middle names. During her trial for assisting Kopp as a fugitive, Mara was considered a flight risk to Canada because of her connections here. I want Steele to tell me the kernel of his involvement as an informant in the Kopp case, which brings us back to the New York cop named Julio Vasquez, the one who one day in 1998 asked Steele if he'd ever heard anything interesting about the shooting of a Dr. Slepian near Buffalo, New York. Steele knows Dennis Malvesi, who has bombed abortion clinics, so he takes the information to Vasquez, who then plans a meet to introduce Steele to an FBI agent. However, how he connected, I don't know. The next thing I know, he's calling me up.

He said, you're going to meet the guy who's going to land in airport. We're going to meet at Toys R Us, which is on Flatbush Avenue. I said, what are you talking about? The guy's flying from Buffalo. He's an FBI agent. He had a funny name. They pulled over in this unmarked SUV. Steele says he and Vasquez meet the handler, and right away, money is mentioned.

And the first thing he says out his mouth is, how would you like to have a million dollars? Look at Julio's. What the hell is this guy talking about? So he explains it to me, what took place. There was a killing in Amherst, and he goes through this whole process of telling me a doctor was killed, an abortion, and I'm connecting my brain, abortion, tennis block abortion, but it was always with me. I can't picture tennis going to place and doing those things.

At this point, unbeknownst to Steele, James Kopp was a suspect in Dr. Slepian's shooting. Mara and Malvesi, according to documents, were communicating with Kopp as he fled through Ireland and then on to Europe. The FBI thought Steele's connections to Malvesi and Mara might help them gather more on Kopp and find him. I was chicken shit scared. Steele says he came up with his codename, Jack Steele, after Jack Daniels and the TV show Remington Steele, both of which he liked. I was freaking so nervous. Not in a bad way nervous, except I was freaking nervous. So as they're driving from Manhattan, the guy says to me, do you want me to take you home? I know

where you live. Where do I live? 1270 76 9th Street. I opened my mouth and said, holy shit, that's scary. That is scary. So I said, yeah, drop me off in the park. I'm not going home. They drop me off. Never again did I want to deal with them. So then I get a phone call from this guy, Michael Osborne. Michael Osborne is FBI and the agent who would become Jack Steele's handler. So I said, yeah, but what is the purpose of working with you guys?

So he said to me very slowly, very quietly, we'll meet again. And Steele says he did meet with Agent Osborne two or three times a week. I liked Michael. He had nice, smooth, easy going about him. He was non-confrontational. So during the course of that time, they proceeded to tell me slowly that Dennis is involved somehow,

but not directly. And in my mind, by that time, I already, I didn't have a computer. I bought a computer in 2000. By reading, learning about the killing of a doctor, I'm reading all this and just connecting, you know. Steele goes on to tell me a story that he says he told his FBI handler, Michael Osborne, about. He says that prior to Dr. Slepian's murder,

Dennis Malvesi brought a gun to store at Steele's house. Steele claims it was an SKS rifle. I had that weapon in my house because Dennis brought it to my house to hold on to it. And I took pictures of it, and I think I gave it to Michael. It was in my house prior to. Dennis come with a sack he brought to my house. And then he picked it up in a sack potato sack, Idaho potato sack he picked it up

I said Dennis be careful man with the rifle be careful put it back on the trunk I had the old car, old automobile So Dennis took the SKS out of your house Yes You have a photo of it? Well I did have a photo, I gave it to the agent

I'm not sure this has ever been widely reported before Yes. You have a photo of it? Well, I did have a photo. I gave it to the agent. I'm not sure this has ever been widely reported before. And I also cannot prove that this alleged rifle existed, or if it did, that it may have had anything to do with any criminal act, let alone a murder. But Steele says he took a photo of it at the time and gave it to the FBI. Steele also tells us another story about Dennis Malvesi that I cannot verify. Didn't they find all those things there that I bought from store? They found all those, the cap, right? Dennis and I bought this.

Jack Steele tells us that he went to a couple of stores with Dennis Malvesi sometime prior to Dr. Slepian's murder. There, Steele says they bought supplies including a flashlight, binoculars, and a cap. Steele says that he gave Malvesi his own credit card to purchase these items in Steele's real name. Steele says he swears to all of this on a Bible. He goes on to say that a hat matching the description of the one that he and Malvesi bought turned up in one of the holes that was dug behind Dr. Slepian's house, what the FBI call the hat hole. The cap recovered at the scene is described by court documents as Exhibit 304, one green baseball cap with the inscriptions New York and NY. Also found in the hole was a flashlight and binoculars. I can't say whether

any of the materials found were the same that Steele says he bought with Malvesi, or if they were, how they ended up in cops' hands, and whether Malvesi knew what they would be used for. There were also two pairs of work gloves found with the gun in the gun hole. Stio was paid well, he tells us, for what he shared with the FBI. When I signed for, they would give me money, $20,000, $30,000, I would put the Social Security 0000, put John Smith, John Smith, John Hancock, so nothing would be under my name.

Right, so you were a paid informant. You were being paid to be an informant by the FBI. Yeah, yeah. So did you ever tell Dennis that you were working with them? He never knew any of this until later, right? About what? About your cooperation with the FBI. Did Dennis know about that? No.

I ask Steele if he heard anything about the Slepian case, and he answers with a tangent, but a potentially worthwhile one. He says there was another sighting he read about that came from another eyewitness. They saw male, white, enter passenger side door and the car took off. And I'm going to be facetious, unless Casper the ghost was around, someone had to drive the car. This account is reported in a Buffalo News article from July 2002 that sources the information from court records.

The article states that the man seen wore a dark hooded sweatshirt, he ran from the bushes and got into the passenger side of a waiting car. I brought that to attention of Michael Osborne. I brought to attention of everyone I could think of. So if this person seen was cop getting into the passenger side of a waiting vehicle, then someone else was driving. Steele tells me about an action he undertook with Loretta, or Rose as he calls her, at an abortion clinic in Brooklyn. While he was

working for the FBI, Steele says he was asked by Rose to glue the locks with crazy glue and toothpicks that she provided so that the clinic workers and patients couldn't enter. We pre-planned with Rose to go and case a doctor's office. This was Friday night or Saturday night towards the evening. And if no one is around to glue the lock. And she picks me up, whatever time it was. She's dressed in khakis, military style. She has her cap, military cap, and she tells me that she picked up,

from one store, she picked up toothpicks. Another store, she picked up crazy glue as we're driving. And we're driving and we're talking, I said, what we gonna do? I didn't say it that way. The conversation was very smooth. She gives me the address, which is around the corner, drops me off.

This is just to delay, she explained, to delay a few hours. The more delay you have, the better it is for the army of God. It would be better for their ego, or whatever you want to call that. Steele says he walks up to the clinic, calling his FBI handler Osborne, and Osborne tells him he shouldn't glue the lock. In the end, Steele doesn't do it, but returns to Mara, waiting in her vehicle on the street,

and tells her he did. I walked back, I said, did it. And the first thing she does, she makes a phone call to Dennis. And they were so happy, the happiness there. And you could hear that, you could hear that excitement. So you built some credibility with her. Sometime later in the relationship, Steele says Mara asks him a question. And she asked me point blank at one point, am I willing to kill a doctor for the cause?

And I said to her, of course, how about you? She says that word, the term she used, no question about it. She was going to kill a doctor. I don't remember which point, but I know she asked me that question. I said yes. While some of what Steele says can be verified through FBI documents, the stories Steele tells me are single-sourced, and I haven't been able to verify them.

But in June 2000 according to an FBI report Mara confided to confidential informant CS1 whom I believe is Jack Steele that she believed that she would be capable of killing for God and a higher good Steele tells us a story about a scheme to raise money in Atlantic City to bring copopp back to North America. The endgame of this scheme is mentioned in part in an FBI affidavit. Rose in this story is Loretta Mara. So you went to Atlantic City.

I went there a few times. Okay, and you went with Rose. The one time you talked about you went with Rose and with Dennis. Dennis and their kids. And the purpose of that trip was what? To raise money for Cop to come back. Through gambling? Correct.

So you were going to gamble and hope to win enough to bring Cop back. And then what was going to happen with Cop? Like, what were they going to do with him? He was supposed to come back either to Canada or to New York and do another job. And do another job. Okay. So how is fundraising through gambling? Like, is that the...

That was my suggestion. Okay. Steele says he also overheard a conversation with more information about the plan for COP to return to North America. As we're driving back from Berlin, Maryland, Dennis suggested to bring money because they want to bring him home because he wants to do

another job in Canada. This is based on Dennis' words. Dennis told you that? Yes. They want to bring him back. He wants to go back to Canada. He wants to bring him back through Canada. Through Canada first. So this is pretty important here.

So Dennis Malvesi told you that they wanted to bring Jim back to do another job in Canada. Yes, that's correct. I've also read FBI reports that show that Malvesi and Mara were concerned while Kopp was on the run that they should get rid of documents they had lying around because they were worried police might eventually get their hands on them. In some of his messaging intercepted and deciphered by the FBI, Kopp mentions he may want to return to the field or work again. Malvesi and Mara discuss this idea, FBI states that this return to work is a reference to violence. Steele says his key moment in the relationship, and informing on it,

happened when Loretta asked him to wire money to James Kopp in France. So I picked up the phone, said, come over here right away. I have to do something. Sure, no problem. She drove all the way to Jamaica Avenue, and she pulled on the right side. This is a storefront, which is the Western Union, and she said, I have to go in there and do something. She said to me, do me a favor, you know, just go inside, send this money to cop.

I said's okay. Steele says Mara had brought one or both of her children in the car with her and that one of them was crying. He says Mara intended to wire the money herself, but that the crying of the child made her ask Steele to do it for her. I go to the front. I said, I want to send some money, but do me a favor, please. I didn't say it that way. I was nervous. I came and tell front, I said, I want to send some money, but do me a favor, please. I didn't say it that way. I was nervous.

I came and tell you what I said. I don't remember what I said, but I did ask for a copy. This is to deny friends. That's why I'm sending money. She made me a copy. I have boots. I take my boot off. I folded as many times as I could, put it right under my sack,

and I put my boot in there, tie it up. Now I cannot walk because it's very, very hard, like having a rat there. Steele shows me a photocopy of the receipt. I have documents here that I sent money to cop in the non-friends. I fold this, you could see the fold, you could see right there, the original fold, okay, and I'm walking there, and she's driving down, she says to me, now you are part of this involvement. And I understood very well I did, because I'm a conspirator, co-conspirator, right? I said yes. Did you know who Jim was?

I didn't know anything about Jim, but I knew someone that I was sending money to was part of something. Steele says he told the FBI about the money transfer and that this, along with other information provided, helped lead authorities to cops' presence in Denain, France in 2001. And that's when the arrest of Dennis arrested James C. Kopp that morning, March 29th. So right away they paid me. The FBI paid $50,000. The Justice Department paid $50,000. The Justice Department made $500,000. So in your role then, it was a series of smaller events that you helped all the way along in the investigation.

Did you ever hear Malvesi or Rose say Jim Cobb killed the abortion doctor? Never. Did you ever meet Jim Cobb? No. And this brings us around to the reason I think Steele agrees to talk to us. Steele was paid reward money from the Americans for his role in James Cobb's arrest. However, he didn't receive any reward from Canadian authorities. Why weren't you paid by Canadian authorities? Because they don't want to.

Okay. Why don't they want to? authorities? Because they don't want to. Okay. Why don't they want to? That's a good question. Michael told me. The task force and Canadian Medical Association were offering $547,000 for a person responsible for the three Canadian shootings being brought to justice by June 1, 2003. And that didn't happen. But Steele thinks it's just a technicality that James Kopp was never brought to justice in Canada for his suspected role in the Canadian shootings. Steele says he deserves the Canadian reward money for what he did to help bring Kopp

to justice in the US. Steele has a website and he shows me many emails he's exchanged with various Canadian entities trying to forward his cause and get paid. I have no religious or political ideology or belief. I'm neither here, neither there. That's why I make it clear to whomever is going to listen to this. It's clear that Kopp had assistance from Dennis Malvesi and Loretta Mara while he was on the run, and I'd like to talk to them both. Available records indicate that they still live together somewhere in the northeastern U.S. According to the Buffalo News, at Kopp's federal trial, Kopp's border crossings were noted before each shooting. Mara accompanied Kopp on a scouting

trip before Dr. Ramales was shot on October 10, 1994. This trip was in Blaine, Washington, just across the border from Vancouver, B.C., the city where Dr. Ramales lived. Kopp also crossed into Canada on October 18 using a car car registered to Mara and Kopp was also seen at the border driving Mara's car back into the US two hours and 40 minutes after Romales's November shooting. Loretta Mara may well be the redacted name in the FBI documents I have where it states that Kopp appeared to be traveling with another person in a vehicle on the day of Dr. Amalis' shooting. I wonder if Steele's FBI handler, Osborne, can help.

Hello, it's Dave Ridgen. Hey David, this is Michael Osborne. First, I want Osborne's opinion of Jack Steele, the confidential informant. Did the FBI find him a credible source? Osborne, as per common FBI practice, will not admit Steele's name or confirm that my reference to him is even correct. Did you find the informant always credible? A lot of times, informants don't know if they can trust you as an agent. Agents don't know if they can trust sources. And so you're kind of working this game. And sometimes

you're playing off of each other. And at the end of the day, was this individual reliable? Absolutely. I think that's been proven by the results of the case. And the information that the source was giving us was being validated through other means. Right. For us, the source was a very reliable person. Next, I ask former Special Agent Osborne about the relationship between Loretta Mara and James Kopp.

They clearly knew each other. She clearly supported him. Agent Osborne about the relationship between Loretta Mara and James Kopp. They clearly knew each other. She clearly supported him. And she and Dennis were complicit in an effort to conceal his identities for his location from law enforcement and to maintain his fugitive status. And Loretta, I would say, would have had the primary connections to Kopp, but Dennis would provide advice and then certainly follow any directives from Loretta. So he was certainly not a minor player, but in terms of their role, he would certainly follow Loretta's lead in what ultimately Kopp wanted to do. Often FBI agents are interviewed for facts, but Osborne does venture forth on one of my questions concerning Kopp and his opinion of the aftermath of Dr. Slepian's murder.

Do you think Kopp was successful in his aim? If we look at what's happening in the world now on the issue, do you think that he could think that he was successful somehow? Like he advanced his side of the argument? Depends on how you define success. And I think that there's a lot of different ways to look at it. Do I think that Kopp's responsible for the current state of affairs? No, not at all. Do I think that he was successful? In some people's mind, yes. Do I think that he broadly impacted? When you look at it at the time, I don't think that he would have had broad support for his efforts. You know, certainly support from some people.

But do I think that there was a broad support for, you know, having people sit in backyards and shooting doctors through the window? I never got that feeling. So in the sense that he was trying to further his effort or legitimize his techniques, I don't think that he was successful in that. Agent Osborne tells me to check out some phone wiretaps that were undertaken on Malvasian Mara, and I put in a request to the U.S. courts

for documents that may contain them. Everything moves slowly, so not sure when I might hear an answer. Back at Jack Steele's place, we're just finishing up. When's that going to be, whatever that... What do you call your website? It's a podcast called Someone Knows Something, and it'll be a while. It's going to take a while. That was exhausting. Steele has given us a pile of documents to copy. Documents that may show us a way forward toward finding potential accomplices to the abortion shootings.

So Amanda and I head to a nearby photocopy shop. And we're going to copy all these documents. To think you can bring them back from Europe to do more work. Yeah, it's sort of delusional. Thinking back on our interview with Steele, his point is essentially the same as mine, if from a different angle and seeking a different kind of dividend. Can some kind of justice be brought to the Canadian shootings? It appears that the second Canadian case came closest at the time.

Dr. Hugh Short was shot in Ancaster, Ontario in November 1995, and police did charge James Kopp with attempted murder, but the charges never made it to trial. So what happened? Alright my friend, we are done for now. That's great. I love you. David Ridgen. The series is also produced by Hadil Abdel-Nabi, Steph Kampf, and Amanda Robb. Sound design by Evan Kelly. Emily Cannell is our digital producer, and our story editor is Chris Oak. Our executive producer is Cecil Fernandez, and the director of CBC Podcasts is Arif Noorani. If you want to help new listeners discover the show, please rate and review wherever you listen. Find us on Twitter and Facebook by searching Someone Knows Something,

or on Instagram at CBC Podcasts. If you're looking for more investigations, check out my other series, The Next Call. Conducted almost exclusively through a series of strategic phone calls, each call dictates how I will investigate cases and follow leads. There are three seasons available Thank you. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.