Anti-abortion militant James Kopp was sentenced on Friday to 25 years to life in prison for the 1998 murder of a New York doctor, whom Kopp called a “mass murderer” for performing abortions.
Kopp, 48, spoke for more than 90 minutes, trying to justify the shooting, before being handed the maximum sentence for the slaying of Dr. Barnett Slepian. Kopp admitted shooting Slepian on Oct. 23, 1998, with a high-powered rifle through the kitchen window of the doctor’s home in Amherst, New York, a suburb of Buffalo near the border of Canada. “They had a mass murderer living there,” Kopp said at his sentencing before Erie County Judge Michael D’Amico. “My intention was to save children. “Dr. Slepian had every opportunity to stop killing, and the children had no opportunity to run away from him,” Kopp said. Kopp fled the United States after the slaying, prompting an international manhunt. Full Story
