Manipulated to Murder?

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Speaker 4 This is definitely one of the stranger cases I've covered. It seems like it comes right out of a novel.

Speaker 4 On November 12th, 2012,

Speaker 4 Jake Nolan set out to the office and home of Dr. Michael Weiss.

Speaker 4 Jake had with him a duffel bag with a massive sledgehammer, a stake knife, zip ties,

Speaker 4 and he's walking through the streets of Manhattan with this.

Speaker 6 When you walked into Dr.

Speaker 8 Michael Weiss's office with that duffel bag, with the weapons that were inside.

Speaker 7 What did you intend to do?

Speaker 11 You know, I intended to kill him.

Speaker 8 This is not a whodunit.

Speaker 13 He did what he was accused of doing.

Speaker 14 But the big question was, why?

Speaker 14 I saw Jake Nolan brainwashed by Dr. Pamela Buckbinder.

Speaker 16 An ivily trained psychiatrist.

Speaker 12 She's brilliant.

Speaker 11 I would have done anything for Pamela.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 17 By the end of this manipulation by Dr. Buckbinder,

Speaker 17 Jake Nolan had become weaponized

Speaker 17 to attack Dr. Weiss, the man with whom she had been fighting over custody of her son.

Speaker 11 They hated each other and in turn she made me hate him.

Speaker 17 Jake Nolan suffered from bipolar disorder. He had these learning problems.
He had personality problems.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 17 She used him for her own benefit. She sacrificed him.

Speaker 11 His office door was open, and I see Michael sitting in a chair.

Speaker 11 I think this is really when I became fully psychotic.

Speaker 18 I don't buy Jake's story that he was brainwashed and manipulated. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Speaker 20 And do you believe that each step of the way, Jake could have made the decision to leave?

Speaker 12 Of course he could have.

Speaker 4 And Dr. Bookbinder claims that she had no involvement at all in this.
That anything Jake Nolan did, he did completely on his own.

Speaker 4 Jake Nolan starts snapping selfies of himself covered in blood.

Speaker 4 I mean, who would possibly snap a selfie of themselves right after they tried to murder someone?

Speaker 11 There's never gonna be a night I don't fall asleep feeling awful for what I've done.

Speaker 21 To this day, Jake Nolan insists his mind was not his own when he set out to kill Dr.

Speaker 28 Michael Weiss at his office on November 12, 2012.

Speaker 11 The knife was in my pocket and the sledgehammer was over my shoulders. He sees the sledgehammer and charges at me and I reached for the knife.

Speaker 11 Here I am with this knife and the guy's bleeding and I'm bleeding and I'm thinking,

Speaker 29 oh my god,

Speaker 11 this is terrifying. It's as if I woke up from a bad dream.

Speaker 30 After Jake stabbed him, Dr.

Speaker 31 Weiss fought back furiously.

Speaker 32 Both men ended up in the hallway of the Manhattan High-Rise.

Speaker 4 911 Graze Emergency.

Speaker 33 This guy screaming like crazy for help.

Speaker 35 Both men were rushed to the hospital, where Jake was placed under arrest for attempted murder and handcuffed to his bed.

Speaker 38 In the weeks ahead, Jake's bizarre story unfolded.

Speaker 32 His claim that he had been manipulated to kill by his own cousin, psychiatrist Pamela Bookbinder.

Speaker 11 My experience with Pamela looking back was incredibly frightening. Incredibly frightening.

Speaker 41 Jake's target that day, Michael Weiss, was Pamela's ex-boyfriend and another psychiatrist.

Speaker 13 Do you believe he was brainwashed?

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 4 To be honest, I try and come in here as little as possible because it's just too many memories.

Speaker 22 Debbie and Jim Nolan, Jake's parents, are devastated.

Speaker 4 He is basically a really good kid who doesn't have a mean bone in his body.

Speaker 11 Jake Nolan, it's a pleasure to meet you.

Speaker 31 Hey, Jake, when we met Jake in the summer of 2016, he seemed rational.

Speaker 11 I've been on meds now for over a year and a half that have finally worked for me.

Speaker 38 But he says that wasn't always the case.

Speaker 45 Jake's parents insist that to understand how and why their then 20-year-old son could have been conditioned to kill,

Speaker 39 you have to go back to his childhood.

Speaker 47 Jake was our third and our youngest child. He was an absolute delight.
He was gifted, he was smart, he liked to invent things.

Speaker 48 But Jake also had problems. By the age of five, he was diagnosed with ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity hyperactivity disorder.

Speaker 47 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.

Speaker 20 What did you see?

Speaker 47 He went through these large mood swings.

Speaker 23 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.

Speaker 11 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 got to go to school.

Speaker 11 Please go to school today. Don't miss another day of school.

Speaker 41 Jake was then diagnosed with depression and anxiety.

Speaker 49 These episodes worsened to the point where at the age of 17, Jake threatened to kill himself.

Speaker 47 He got a butcher knife from downstairs and he took it upstairs to his room and he said he was going to kill himself.

Speaker 47 We were terrified.

Speaker 39 Jake was hospitalized and was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Speaker 17 Bipolar disorder is a severe and chronic mental illness that's characterized by severe mood swings.

Speaker 30 Psychiatrist Dr. Sasha Bardet has evaluated Jake for the defense.

Speaker 17 Swings that go from deep dark suicidal depressions to periods of incredible elation, grandiose ideas, poor judgment.

Speaker 17 He's a mess. He's such a prisoner of his own mind that he can't get anywhere in life.

Speaker 11 There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of killing myself.

Speaker 11 I've tried strangling myself, drowning myself, overdosing on drugs.

Speaker 53 By the time Jake was in college, doctors had prescribed some 30 medications to treat him, with little success.

Speaker 41 Some of these medications change brain chemistry, do they not?

Speaker 17 Well, these are powerful psychotropic medications. His disorder, his problems were so profound, sometimes he's taking four, five, six medications at once.

Speaker 27 Jake admits he was also doing illegal drugs and drinking, barely making it to class.

Speaker 25 The Nolans thought their prayers had been answered when Dr.

Speaker 49 Pamela Bookbinder, Debbie's own niece, offered to help.

Speaker 4 We thought this was great. I adored Pam.

Speaker 50 You trusted her.

Speaker 4 I trusted her with my most prized possession, my child.

Speaker 54 The plan?

Speaker 41 Jake would live part-time with Pamela in her Manhattan apartment.

Speaker 31 She would give him therapy sessions and monitor his meds.

Speaker 34 In return, she proposed he help take care of her then four-year-old son, Calder, in spite of Jake's mental illness.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 11 I mean, this woman is gonna save my life.

Speaker 43 By all accounts, the plan seemed to be working.

Speaker 4 I thought he was very happy, and I thought he was quite stable.

Speaker 50 So you guys must have felt everything's coming together here.

Speaker 36 Thank you.

Speaker 55 Finally.

Speaker 47 Thank you.

Speaker 12 Right?

Speaker 43 But the Nolans now say sending their son to live with Pamela was the biggest mistake they have ever made.

Speaker 4 It's a total horrible nightmare.

Speaker 39 When Jake Nolan went to live with his psychiatrist cousin, Dr.

Speaker 60 Pamela Bookbinder, he had no idea he'd end up on the front lines of a physical and psychological war.

Speaker 4 The relationship between Dr. Bookbinder and Dr.
Weiss was very toxic from the outset.

Speaker 31 Reporter Rebecca Rosenberg has covered the case for the New York Post.

Speaker 4 The relationship was on again, off again. There were allegations of domestic violence on both sides.

Speaker 18 It definitely got physical.

Speaker 26 Roland Acevedo is an attorney for Dr.

Speaker 23 Michael Weiss.

Speaker 55 Is it true that Pam once attacked Michael with broken glass?

Speaker 18 She was arrested and charged with an assault. He received stitches.
I mean, there's physical proof that he was attacked.

Speaker 7 Is it true that Michael Weiss has also been arrested in the course of this war with Pam?

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 18 Pamela contended that Michael threatened her or attempted to assault her.

Speaker 56 In each incident, the charges were dismissed.

Speaker 12 But the war of the psychiatrists moved onto another battlefield, the courtroom, as Pamela and Michael fought over the custody of their son.

Speaker 8 These are two psychiatrists.

Speaker 21 Couldn't they talk it out?

Speaker 18 There was no communication.

Speaker 41 But back during the times when he and Pamela were communicating big time, Michael Weiss attended family parties, including Jake's bar mitzvah.

Speaker 62 Kamala, I just want to wish you congratulations on your bar mitzvah.

Speaker 63 We're both so happy for you.

Speaker 4 We were inspired by all of the speeches about opportunity and charm and character, and we think you have them all.

Speaker 31 And that makes it even more incredible

Speaker 49 that Jake would target him.

Speaker 11 This is a man who respected me and who I respected greatly.

Speaker 34 Michael and Pamela never married and broke up for good soon after their son Calder was born. Ready?

Speaker 51 When Calder was four, Pamela asked Jake to be her child's godfather.

Speaker 48 Shortly before, she took Jake in.

Speaker 7 Jake's mother is convinced that is when Pamela began to manipulate his mind.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 64 Yes.

Speaker 11 This was a kid that I loved more than life.

Speaker 17 Jake wants a normal life.

Speaker 23 Defense psychiatrist Sasha Bardet says Pamela knew how to give Jake the life he craved.

Speaker 17 He wants to be a successful, respected family man with a nuclear family and a happy life.

Speaker 7 There's a photograph of the three of you in bed, basically in your underwear.

Speaker 7 What should we take from that picture?

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 11 You know, really feel like a family together.

Speaker 39 But Dr.

Speaker 19 Bardet finds these images deeply troubling.

Speaker 17 When you think that you're seeing pictures of essentially a patient and his psychiatrist,

Speaker 65 it's really horrific.

Speaker 44 It's really creepy.

Speaker 30 Just as troubling for Jake's family were text messages discovered on his cell phone.

Speaker 20 Let me read to you some of the texts that Pam Bookbinder sent to Jake.

Speaker 55 You're just the most fun person to love.

Speaker 8 You're so beautiful.

Speaker 38 She'd call him lovey, sweet Jake.

Speaker 27 You are remarkable. You are brilliant.

Speaker 6 I have so many thoughts about you.

Speaker 12 Well,

Speaker 47 this is almost sickening. And there was never any romantic or sexual relationship ever between these two people.
So what this is, is all mental

Speaker 47 manipulation.

Speaker 7 I miss you terribly, she would say when you were away.

Speaker 36 That sounds romantic.

Speaker 11 You know, it does.

Speaker 11 I don't know what her intentions were to this day. I wouldn't be able to tell you.

Speaker 19 And as Pamela was apparently building Jake up, he says she was tearing Michael Weiss apart.

Speaker 50 claiming Michael was refusing to pay Calder's child support and worse.

Speaker 11 She had me convinced that he was being molested at his father's home.

Speaker 20 And how many times did she say this?

Speaker 27 Was this repeated over and over?

Speaker 11 Oh, this was every day.

Speaker 7 Has Michael Weiss ever,

Speaker 20 ever abused his son in any way?

Speaker 18 Absolutely not. Michael worships that child.

Speaker 7 Jake, what real evidence did you have that Michael was sexually abusing his son?

Speaker 11 There was no evidence.

Speaker 41 But at the time, Jake says that's how Pamela was able to pull him into the plot to kill Michael Weiss.

Speaker 17 Part of the indoctrination process was to get Jake to participate in developing the plan.

Speaker 48 And the plan, if you believe Jake,

Speaker 48 was horrific.

Speaker 11 Pamela was determined for me to torture Michael before killing him. She wanted me to inject him with some poisonous chemicals.
She wanted to burn him alive in front of a group of people.

Speaker 58 Jake's story is dramatic, but is it true?

Speaker 19 Despite Jake's accusations, he was the only one charged.

Speaker 36 But Michael Weiss sued Dr.

Speaker 66 Bookbinder for the attack, and in court papers, she calls the claims against her utterly baseless and states, I never asked Mr.

Speaker 36 Nolan to attack or harm Mr.

Speaker 66 Weiss.

Speaker 4 Dr. Bookbinder also claims that there's no smoking gun here.

Speaker 4 There's no evidence of emails or text messages that show that she and Jake plotted this together.

Speaker 11 You can't deny the footage that shows her in Home Depot buying a sledgehammer.

Speaker 27 Jake insists this surveillance video at a Home Depot in New York City proves his claims.

Speaker 61 That's Pamela standing next to him,

Speaker 41 paying for the very tool that police would find the next morning on the floor of Michael Weiss's office.

Speaker 7 Jake, there's no one that really disputes that you suffer from mental illness. But could you have another problem as well?

Speaker 20 Could you be a sociopath?

Speaker 11 No, I could not.

Speaker 11 Had I never met Pamela Bookbinder,

Speaker 11 this wouldn't be my story.

Speaker 23 As Jake Nolan's eyes opened on the morning of November 12, 2012, the day he was supposed to kill Michael Weiss,

Speaker 38 he says he wasn't alone.

Speaker 11 Pamela is 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.

Speaker 41 Just the night before, Pamela had bought this sledgehammer at a Home Depot in New York.

Speaker 11 That is Pamela Bookbinder paying for the sledgehammer. She's right there.
She has cash in her hand.

Speaker 41 With plans, Jake claims, of having him bash her ex-boyfriend in the head.

Speaker 11 You know, I intended to kill him.

Speaker 19 Jake says that Pamela's lovey-dovey mood quickly changed

Speaker 39 as she allegedly packed a duffel bag with weapons.

Speaker 11 She was hysterical, crying tears as she put the sledgehammer into a duffel bag with a kitchen knife.

Speaker 8 Like she's packing a bag to head off to school, except this is to head off to a murder.

Speaker 11 Exactly.

Speaker 53 And there was one more item that was vital to the scheme.

Speaker 11 The night before she had provided me with the map in Hattigantz's apartment. She handed me that.

Speaker 53 This map, which Pamela drew herself, showed the multiple entrances of Michael Weiss's building.

Speaker 61 Michael's attorney, Roland Acevedo.

Speaker 7 Do you believe essentially this was a battle plan map?

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 41 Pamela says she never gave Jake the knife

Speaker 30 and that the map was given to Jake to help care for Calder.

Speaker 4 It had the daycare where he was going

Speaker 4 and had Dr. Weiss's building.

Speaker 45 Jake says Pamela said goodbye that morning with just one goal in mind.

Speaker 11 Today is the day.

Speaker 11 Life is going to be so much better after Michael is... She used the word terminated.
After Michael is terminated

Speaker 23 clutching that hand-drawn map

Speaker 46 Jake headed to Michael's Midtown Manhattan high-rise

Speaker 4 he kind of scoped out the building on different sides it had two separate entrances

Speaker 19 entered through the business entrance Jake signed in writing that he was heading to a tutoring center in the building called Bright Kids.

Speaker 53 It was marked on the map.

Speaker 23 He didn't even bother using an alias.

Speaker 11 I signed him with my own name. Remember, I was willing to die for this woman.
I wasn't trying to hide anything.

Speaker 23 Jake went straight to the 12th floor and walked in on Michael in the middle of a session.

Speaker 49 Jake left the office and waited in a stairwell while Michael finished with the patient.

Speaker 10 What are you thinking to yourself?

Speaker 41 What's going through your head?

Speaker 11 I think I was really nervous. I think I wanted to out, but I didn't have a means to do it because I couldn't go back to Pamela without this done.

Speaker 11 I felt like I had no choice.

Speaker 54 After the patient left, Jake asked Michael for some financial forms for Calder school.

Speaker 19 Pamela claims picking up those forms was the only reason Jake was there.

Speaker 49 But Jake says it was all a ruse to distract Michael while Jake went to the restroom to prepare.

Speaker 11 I grabbed the sledgehammer.

Speaker 11 I put the knife in my pocket.

Speaker 11 From here on out, it's,

Speaker 11 I remember bits and pieces.

Speaker 27 But according to Michael Weiss's attorney, Michael remembers it all too well.

Speaker 18 Jake came out of a bathroom in Michael's office and hit him with a sledgehammer.

Speaker 41 Michael managed to duck just in time, missing the full brunt of the 10-pound tool.

Speaker 46 Still, the sledgehammer made contact with his shoulder.

Speaker 24 That's when Michael says Jake reached for the knife.

Speaker 11 That's when I first stabbed Michael Weiss.

Speaker 11 And then from there on out, it was just, it was a fight.

Speaker 18 And then he stabbed Michael seven or eight times in various places.

Speaker 18 The stomach, the back, the chest.

Speaker 41 Michael, who's six foot three and 205 pounds, managed to overpower Jake.

Speaker 11 On the ground, standing up, you know, I got stabbed multiple times.

Speaker 11 I thought that someone was bound to die.

Speaker 32 The two men stumbled into the hallway where neighbors heard the commotion.

Speaker 11 I think it's a psychologist.

Speaker 33 We might have had a client who witnessed.

Speaker 42 Good morning, my hand. Colonel, patient breathing.

Speaker 67 Yeah, but I got a lot of blood. They're losing a lot of blood.

Speaker 49 Then, as he sat on the floor bleeding, Jake lifted his cell phone and took that selfie.

Speaker 8 Why did you take a selfie?

Speaker 11 You know, we were sitting right next to each other and I was reporting back to Pamela, like, what do I do next?

Speaker 45 Jake says Pamela didn't respond.

Speaker 41 A short time later at the hospital, Jake tried texting her again.

Speaker 8 This is what you wrote.

Speaker 10 In hospital, please come.

Speaker 7 Michael bleeding badly.

Speaker 55 Same.

Speaker 6 I walked into office.

Speaker 7 He stabbed me with my knife in the heart.

Speaker 25 This time, Pamela answered with a single word.

Speaker 59 Where?

Speaker 11 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,

Speaker 11 try again later. I mean, I really believe it's her plan to try again later.

Speaker 23 Hospital records say Jake was in a manic state after the attack.

Speaker 57 Pamela eventually showed up at the ER but was not allowed to see Jake.

Speaker 11 I was in a full-blown psychotic episode. I was heavily medicated on morphine.

Speaker 30 Michael Weiss suffered multiple cuts to his upper torso and legs.

Speaker 23 He was stitched up and released from the hospital.

Speaker 23 Jake was still recovering from his own wounds to his chest and hand when the reality of his arrest for attempted murder hit him.

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Speaker 41 After his arrest for attempted murder, Jake Nolan spent four days recovering in the hospital.

Speaker 23 He then appeared before a judge and was freed on $200,000 bail pending trial.

Speaker 41 Jake was allowed to fly home to live with his parents outside of Miami.

Speaker 49 Ready?

Speaker 9 What would you have said to Calder one day if he asked you, why did you kill my father?

Speaker 62 I don't know.

Speaker 11 I gave everything for this child. I was willing to kill someone for this child.

Speaker 11 That alone can only show how sorry I feel when he finds out about this later on in life.

Speaker 45 But what of Pamela Bookbinder?

Speaker 41 Soon after the attack, Michael sued for custody of their son, claiming Pamela was the mastermind.

Speaker 36 A family court judge considered the 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.

Speaker 18 The evidence showed, and the family court agreed, that Pamela was involved in the plan or plot to attack and kill Michael.

Speaker 23 Despite the evidence presented in family court, Pamela was still not criminally charged in the attack.

Speaker 21 Why not? The district attorney's office will not comment.

Speaker 7 But Michael Weiss's attorney thinks part of the problem is the key accuser in this case.

Speaker 18 Jacob, because he contends that he has this history of mental illness, is perhaps not the most reliable witness for the prosecution.

Speaker 35 Jake spent much of his time awaiting trial in and out of of treatment centers for both his mental problems and drug and alcohol addictions.

Speaker 51 Despite those efforts, his life almost came to a tragic end in May 2015.

Speaker 20 What happened that caused you to be in this hospital bed?

Speaker 11 I tried to kill myself. I tried to take my own life.

Speaker 7 This time, Jake ended up in a coma after poisoning himself.

Speaker 4 This was probably the worst day of my life because they told us they didn't think Jake was going to make it.

Speaker 41 Finally, in March 2016, three and a half years after the attack, Jake's trial gets underway in New York.

Speaker 4 The prosecution portrayed Jake as kind of a spoiled rich kid.

Speaker 27 Just one of many challenges for the defense.

Speaker 4 Jake Nolan was a very unreliable narrator of this event.

Speaker 19 For one thing, it wasn't until until weeks after the attack that Jake claimed Pamela had manipulated him.

Speaker 56 Another problem?

Speaker 4 He gave at least three different versions of what happened. Each was meant to cast him in the most innocent light possible.

Speaker 23 In one version, Jake tried to put the blame on Michael Weiss.

Speaker 4 When the first responder showed up, he immediately pointed the finger at Dr. Weiss and said, he stabbed me.

Speaker 41 In another account, Jake told investigators he never swung the sledgehammer.

Speaker 11 This was a big hammer. I couldn't even lift the thing up.

Speaker 22 Jake claims he only brought the sledgehammer and knife because he was afraid of Michael.

Speaker 53 Perhaps most stunning of all, a third version.

Speaker 4 He claims that Dr. Weiss pulled the sledgehammer out of his bag and attacked him first with it.

Speaker 4 So that really doesn't make any sense. I mean, how would Dr.
Weiss even know that the sledgehammer is in the bag?

Speaker 41 Jake Jake has said all along he had been convinced the attack on Michael was the only way to save Calder.

Speaker 50 But at trial, prosecutors hinted at another motive.

Speaker 23 Michael Weiss had taken out a $1.5 million

Speaker 28 life insurance policy.

Speaker 18 The beneficiary was his son, who probably at the time was three or four years old.

Speaker 27 But there was a catch.

Speaker 41 Just three days before the attack, Michael agreed to make Pamela the policy's irrevocable trustee.

Speaker 7 What does that mean in English?

Speaker 18 Irrevocable means can't be taken back.

Speaker 41 So if Michael dies...

Speaker 18 If Michael passed away, the child would get the $1.5 million,

Speaker 18 but she would be the person that controlled the money for the child.

Speaker 58 To this day, Jake insists he had no clue before the attack that money may have been involved.

Speaker 11 I had no idea Pamela never mentioned mentioned that to me.

Speaker 13 Her plan was for you to kill him.

Speaker 53 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 41 But the most damning evidence came from Jake himself.

Speaker 43 The prosecution's psychiatrist interviewed Jake before trial, and clips from the exam were played to jurors.

Speaker 41 In one, a shockingly frank discussion about another item Pamela bought at Home Depot.

Speaker 3 What was the zip ties for?

Speaker 11 She wanted me to like torture Michael,

Speaker 11 which I didn't tell her, but I wasn't down to do that.

Speaker 13 So you were down to kill, but not torture?

Speaker 37 Yeah.

Speaker 19 What did she want you to do to torture him?

Speaker 11 She wanted me to cut off his b.

Speaker 17 She said... That was a line too far for you.

Speaker 29 Yeah.

Speaker 3 How come?

Speaker 11 I don't know. I've never heard anyone before.

Speaker 46 The prosecution saw this as a stunning admission.

Speaker 41 On tape, at least, it appears Jake was a willing participant in planning the attack and could draw a line when he wanted to.

Speaker 4 The crux of the prosecution's argument here is that this is not some babbling idiot that didn't know which way was up.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 49 In fact, it's why he and his legal team argue a risky defense, diminished capacity.

Speaker 16 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'd be found not guilty.

Speaker 17 I understand that the prosecution feels that clearly Jake never had a gun to his head. In my opinion, psychologically speaking, he did.

Speaker 30 Dr.

Speaker 41 Sasha Bardet, who testified for the defense at trial, says Pamela had replaced Jake's free will with her own.

Speaker 17 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.

Speaker 17 It has two people in it: there's a cult leader, Pamela Bookbinder, and the cult member, Jake Nolan.

Speaker 55 Jake never takes the stand.

Speaker 28 Pamela Bookbinder never even set foot in the courtroom.

Speaker 27 Neither side called her to testify.

Speaker 31 In March of 2016, after a two-week trial, the jury began its deliberations.

Speaker 61 In less than an hour, the jury comes back.

Speaker 47 We have reached a verdict. Guilty.

Speaker 28 Guilty of attempted murder.

Speaker 11 It's unjust.

Speaker 11 I'm no harm to society.

Speaker 66 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.

Speaker 4 You're in just such shock.

Speaker 47 I was like somebody just crushed me from top to bottom, just totally took my heart right out of me.

Speaker 44 And what of Michael Weiss, the man Jake Nolan would have killed if the murder plot had succeeded.

Speaker 18 Michael never goes anywhere without looking over his shoulder. He's been traumatized by this.

Speaker 11 I know what I did was very serious, but there is also another party that needs to take responsibility too.

Speaker 41 And that person is Pamela Bookbinder.

Speaker 42 And her role in this sordid case is about to take, let's wait till she comes down, a dramatic turn.

Speaker 46 Pamela Bookbinder, Peter Van Sand from 48 Hours.

Speaker 63 No, she's not. I have a simple question.

Speaker 41 Why did you buy that sledgehammer?

Speaker 23 Pamela Bookbinder, the most talked-about woman during Jake Nolan's trial,

Speaker 32 had always managed to elude the public.

Speaker 66 But we caught up with Pamela about four months after Jake Nolan was sentenced.

Speaker 63 I have a simple question. Why did you buy that sledgehammer?

Speaker 59 You know what?

Speaker 46 You can answer that question.

Speaker 41 Were you going to do some home improvement or were you buying a murder weapon?

Speaker 1 Out of her face.

Speaker 4 I can't. Can't touch the camera.
Get it out of her face.

Speaker 46 Pamela, you can answer that question.

Speaker 41 But on October 19th, almost five years after Michael Weiss was attacked, the law finally caught up with Dr.

Speaker 45 Pamela Bookbinder.

Speaker 31 Bookbinder was arrested at a friend's house outside Syracuse, New York.

Speaker 28 She has been charged with second-degree attempted murder and first-degree attempted assault.

Speaker 22 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.

Speaker 28 Jake Nolan would not comment on Pamela Bookbinder's arrest, but Michael Weiss's attorney did.

Speaker 18 I was not surprised when she was indicted and arrested.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 5 Pamela is innocent. I'm telling you that.

Speaker 27 Pamela Bookbinder has hired two top New York defense attorneys, Ronald Faschetti and Eric Franz.

Speaker 62 Pamela Bookbinder had nothing to do with that.

Speaker 38 Who will argue at trial that this video of Bookbinder buying that sledgehammer is just a sideshow.

Speaker 62 To explain why she bought the sledgehammer for him is not what the case is about. It's why Jacob Nolan took it upon himself to sneak into an apartment, attempt to bludgeon a man, and knife him.

Speaker 64 She is presumed innocent.

Speaker 11 But merely saying that she's presumed innocent doesn't mean that she enjoyed that privilege.

Speaker 23 Bookbinder's attorneys have argued before two judges that their client should be granted bail and they've offered to put up a $1.5 million bond to guarantee she won't run off.

Speaker 66 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.

Speaker 48 The entire world has fallen on this woman.

Speaker 64 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.

Speaker 27 Her attorneys argue that the case has essentially been solved and that Jake Nolan is the sole perpetrator.

Speaker 29 Judge, he was on 48 hours.

Speaker 47 And on 48 hours, he admitted everything.

Speaker 6 When you walked into Dr.

Speaker 8 Michael Weiss's office with that duffel bag, with the weapons that were inside,

Speaker 7 What did you intend to do?

Speaker 11 You know, I intended to kill him.

Speaker 37 Bookbinder's legal team later introduced what they say is an incriminating new piece of evidence found buried in their legal file.

Speaker 27 A note allegedly written by Jake Nolan to his mother, Debbie, after the attack in 2012 as he recovered in the hospital.

Speaker 40 It reads, Pamela has nothing to do with this.

Speaker 62 This man acted completely on his own.

Speaker 13 So it's a very, very crucial piece of evidence.

Speaker 27 Remember, the defense team says Jake wrote this letter while he was in what his doctors called a manic state and heavily medicated.

Speaker 18 That note is a handwritten note that is unsigned, undated, unauthenticated, that was allegedly written by Jake in 2012.

Speaker 18 So that note probably can't be admitted into evidence in any event because it's hearsay.

Speaker 49 After the judge heard these arguments, he refuses to grant Bookbinder bail.

Speaker 61 She is being held in New York's notorious Rikers Island jail.

Speaker 23 Prosecutor Joel Seideman is anxious to get this case underway. We're ready.
But one person who will be apprehensive about yet another trial in this case is the real victim, Michael Weiss.

Speaker 18 Michael has been traumatized by this incident.

Speaker 18 Michael continues to go on with his life. He's a real fighter.

Speaker 58 The defense believes their star witness will be Jake Nolan.

Speaker 62 Because when we're done cross-examining him, this jury wouldn't trust him on taking their lunch order.

Speaker 45 But ultimately, this case may very well come down to this one 10-pound sledgehammer and why Pamela Buckbinder paid cash for it at this Home Depot the night before the attack.

Speaker 62 Pamela Buckbinder is an educated psychiatrist, not Wiley Coyote. She didn't plan to orchestrate a murder with a sledgehammer that the man couldn't pick up.

Speaker 14 Why did she buy that sledgehammer?

Speaker 16 To quote our president, stay tuned.

Speaker 5 In 2022, Pamela Buckbinder 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.

Speaker 12 Weiss's attack.

Speaker 12 Tulsa is my home now.

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