attorney mark o'connor who defended john demjanjuk

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) _ Mark O’Connor defended John Demjanjuk because he was convinced the retired autoworker couldn’t be the Nazi death camp guard who savagely beat Jews on the way to the gas chamber. Demjanjuk was a gentle old man who’d bounce O’Connor’s 3-year-old daughter on his knee, smiling and talking nonsense.

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Why did Mark O'Connor defend Demjanjuk?

(AP) _ Mark O’Connor defended John Demjanjuk because he was convinced the retired autoworker couldn’t be the Nazi death camp guard who savagely beat Jews on the way to the gas chamber.

Why was O'Connor dismissed?

O’Connor, who was asked to take the case by Demjanjuk’s daughter, was dismissed because of a dispute with Demjanjuk’s family and the Ukrainian community that supported him over the direction of the case. ″They (the family) didn’t understand the culture or country the way I did,″ he said of Israel.

Who replaced O'Connor as Chief Defender?

The attorney that replaced O’Connor as chief defender, Yoram Sheftel, changed the tone of the defense, trying to discredit the prosecution’s witnesses.

Will Demjanjuk be appealed?

Under Israeli law, Demjanjuk’s case will automatically be appealed and will probably be reviewed by the nation’s Supreme Court . O’Connor said the court would give the case an extensive review and offer Demjanjuk another chance to cast doubt on whether he is ″Ivan the Terrible.″.

Who is John Demjanjuk's attorney?

Yoram Sheftel, John Demjanjuk's attorney impending decision of Supreme Court in appeal of his conviction of being Nazi war criminal Ivan the Terrible. Photo: David Rubinger/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty. Israeli lawyer Yoram Sheftel, who represented accused Nazi war criminal and Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk during his trial in the '80s, ...

Who was Demjanjuk's attorney fired?

Sheftel also ruffled the feathers of Demjanjuk’s former attorney Mark O’Connor, who was fired by Demjanjuk just weeks before testifying. O’Connor, who reportedly blamed his departure on Sheftel, accused the Israeli lawyer of a “pattern of negligence and misconduct,” the Los Angeles Times reported. He even referred to the Israeli attorney as a manipulative “family enforcer.”

When was Demjanjuk sentenced to hang?

Demjanjuk was sentenced to hang in 1988. However, Shefter ultimately emerged victorious in the case, after Israel overturned Demjanjuk's conviction due to new evidence that arose suggesting Ivan the Terrible was a different Ukrainian. In the decades since Demjanjuk's case, Sheftel, who’s also a popular radio talk show host in Israel, ...

Where did Demjanjuk die?

Demjanjuk died in a German nursing home in 2012 appealing separate war crimes charges in Munich, where he was accused of being an accessory in the death of nearly 30,000 Jewish prisoners, The New York Times reported.

Who was the most hated man in Israel?

A Jewish lawyer who once represented accused Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk, Yoram Sheftel referred to himself as the “most hated man in Israel” during the trial against his client in the late '80s. Yoram Sheftel, John Demjanjuk's attorney impending decision of Supreme Court in appeal of his conviction of being Nazi war criminal Ivan the Terrible.

What is the Devil Next Door about?

Sheftel is one of a handful of eccentric characters portrayed on Netflix’s new docu-series “The Devil Next Door,” which follows the twisting court case of the Cleveland grandfather accused of horrific crimes. So what exactly happened to Sheftel, a man who decided to do something his fellow countrymen thought of as a betrayal?

Why did Demjanjuk get revoked?

In August 1977, the Justice Department submitted a request to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio to revoke Demjanjuk's citizenship, based on his concealment on his 1951 immigration application of having worked at Nazi death camps.

Who was John Demjanjuk?

John Demjanjuk (born Ivan Mykolaiovych Demjanjuk; Ukrainian: Іван Миколайович Дем'янюк; 3 April 1920 – 17 March 2012) was a Ukrainian-American who served as a Trawniki man and Nazi camp guard at Sobibor extermination camp, Majdanek, and Flossenbürg. Demjanjuk became the center of global media attention in the 1980s, ...

Why did Demjanjuk get a tattoo?

Other controversial evidence included Demjanjuk's tattoo. Demjanjuk admitted the scar under his armpit was an SS blood group tattoo, which he removed after the war , as did many SS men to avoid summary execution by the Soviets. The blood group tattoo was applied by army medics and used by combat personnel in the Waffen-SS and its foreign volunteers and conscripts because they were likely to need blood or give transfusions. There is no evidence that POWs trained as police auxiliaries at Trawniki were required to receive such tattoos, although it was an option for those that volunteered.

How much money did Demjanjuk raise for his defense?

Demjanjuk's defense was supported by the Ukrainian community and various Eastern European émigré groups; Demjanjuk's supporters alleged that he was the victim of a communist conspiracy and raised over two million dollars for his defense. Much of the money was raised by a Cleveland-based Holocaust denier Jerome Brentar, who also recommended Demjanjuk's lawyer Mark O'Connor. The first day of the denaturalization trial was accompanied by a protest of 150 Ukrainian-Americans who called the trial "a Soviet trial in an American court" and burned a Soviet flag. Demjanjuk also attracted the support of conservative political figures such as Pat Buchanan and Ohio congressman James Traficant. Others, particularly American Jews, were outraged by the presence of Demjanjuk in the United States and vocally supported his deportation. Writer Lawrence Douglas has called the case "the most highly publicized denaturalization proceeding in American history."

What happened to Demjanjuk?

Demjanjuk became the center of global media attention in the 1980s, when he was tried and convicted after being misidentified as " Ivan the Terrible ", a notoriously cruel watchman at Treblinka extermination camp. Shortly before his death, he was again tried and convicted as an accessory to 28,000 murders at Sobibor.

What did the Supreme Court's denial of review mean?

The Supreme Court's denial of review meant that the order of removal was final; no other appeal was possible. One month after the US Supreme Court's refusal to hear Demjanjuk's case, on 19 June 2008, Germany announced it would seek the extradition of Demjanjuk to Germany.

How long was Demjanjuk's trial?

Demjanjuk arrived in the courtroom in a wheelchair pushed by a German police officer. Because of the long pauses between trial dates and cancellations caused by the alleged health problems of the defendant and his defense attorney Busch's use of many legal motions, the trial eventually stretched to eighteen months.