While Malvesi was in Bowie, Md., bucking up the White Rose banqueteers, the FBI was searching Malvesi's apartment in Brooklyn. They eventually captured Kopp by tracking Malvesi's efforts to wire him money in France. Malvesi and his associate Laura Marra are now in jail without bond, charged with aiding and abetting Kopp's flight from justice.

The funds raised at the White Rose Banquet are ostensibly for the Prisoners of Christ, which also provides financial support to the most notorious anti-abortion criminals and criminal suspects currently behind bars: Paul Hill, on Florida's death row for the murder of a doctor and his escort; Michael Griffin, serving a life sentence for murdering a doctor; Shelly Shannon, convicted of the attempted murder of a doctor and series of arsons across the western United States; and James Kopp, indicted for the murder of a doctor and awaiting extradition from France. Kopp has also been charged in Canada for a series of sniper attacks on physicians. Malvesi and Laura Marra are being held without bond in New York on charges of aiding Kopp in his international flight from justice.

The highlight of each year's banquet is an auction featuring relics of terrorist acts and handicrafts by convicted felons. The announcement for the 2002 banquet, for example, reminds prospective attendees:

Items donated by prisoners in the past have included: handicrafts, pencil sketches, including calligraphy of the Ten Commandments, by Paul Hill; artwork from Shelley Shannon; the black leather jacket worn by James Mitchell as he burned a baby killing center in Northern Virginia; denim jacket Joshua Graff wore while performing his acts of kindness towards the unborn; and the watch used by Dennis Malvesi to time his incendiary device to blow up Planned Parenthood in NYC.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the banquet is that it is visible proof that there exists more than just a loose association of individuals or small groups utilizing the name of Army of God. "Nothing secret about that meeting anymore," observes Tracy Sefl, a sociologist at the University of Illinois who has studied the nexus of these groups. It's so obvious, she says, that the White Rose Banquet might as well be called the "annual above-ground meeting of the Army of God."

But it is long past time that the Army of God should be viewed as more than a confederacy of lone nuts, according to Sefl. She sees the Army of God and its constituent parts as displaying considerable "rationality and organization" -- particularly in the staging of the White Rose Banquet.

"If an organization exists to create order, to plan, to articulate a message," she says, "these are all things that we see in the Army of God." Other characteristics of organization evident in the Army of God are such things as "commonality of language, shared tools, identifiable leadership, and fund-raising," she observes. "The hook? Prisoners of Christ."

The Army of God has evolved, she believes. "As the political climate has changed around clinics, so has the Army of God. It's a classic case of organizational behavior," she says. "It adapts to its environment."

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