The Department of Justice has indicted 11 anti-abortion activists, including an 87-year-old woman.
The activists allegedly blockaded an abortion clinic near Knoxville, Tennessee, on March 5, 2021.
According to the DOJ, the activists violated the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) by blocking employees and at least one patient from entering the building.
Seven of the activists, Chester Gallagher, 73, Paul Vaughn, 55, Heather Idoni, 58, Calvin Zastrow, 57, Caroline Davis, 24, Coleman Boyd, 51, and Dennis Green, 56, were charged with "conspiracy against rights secured by the FACE Act."
Eva Edl, 87, Eva Zastro, 24, James Zastro, 25, and Paul Place, 24, were charged with lesser FACE Act violations.
In a press release, the Department of Justice said "the indictment alleges that, beginning in February 2021, Gallagher utilized social media to promote a series of anti-abortion events scheduled for March 4-7, 2021, in the Nashville area. Other co-conspirators then utilized Facebook to coordinate travel and logistics and to identify other participants for the blockade."
"On March 4, 2021, Boyd and Gallagher advertised the blockade of the Carafem Health Center Clinic, in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, which was planned for the following day," the DOJ press release continued. "In his social media post, Gallagher referred to the blockade as a 'rescue.'"
The department claims that Boyd had Facebook livestreamed the blockade, which included members of the group "attempting to engage a patient and her companion as Boyd told his livestream audience that the patient was a 'mom coming to kill her baby.'"
"The indictment further alleges that on March 5, 2021, the 11 individuals, aided and abetted by one another, used force and physical obstruction to injure, intimidate and interfere with employees of the clinic and a patient who was seeking reproductive health services," the press release says.
If convicted of the offenses, the DOJ says that the seven conspiracy defendants each face up to a maximum of 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release and fines of up to $350,000. The remaining five defendants face a year in prison, one year of supervised release, and a fine of up to $10,000.
Late last month, the Justice Department sent “20-plus heavily armed federal agents with shields and long guns” to arrest Catholic anti-abortion activist Mark Houck at his home, also for alleged violations of the FACE Act.
The government claims that Houck had "forcefully shoved" Bruce Love, a 72-year-old volunteer at a Philadelphia Planned Parenthood, in October. Houck maintains that the escort was harassing his 12-year-old son, who was with him protesting outside the clinic.
Peter Breen, an attorney with the Thomas More Society representing Houck, told The Daily Signal that he believes the government is seeking “to intimidate pro-life people and people of faith.”
“The prosecution was being run out of the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “These prosecutions are usually run by the local U.S. attorney’s office. But instead, on the day this broke out, main justice was handling the media and it was put out that one of the senior trial attorneys from the Department of Justice would be litigating this case.”
“Based on what we understand, a local U.S. attorney’s office would not have approved a raid of that size for an alleged crime, which doesn’t involve guns, drugs, the Mafia. And so that raid would have been approved at a high level within the Department of Justice in Washington. And we don’t know if the attorney general himself approved the raid, but presumably one of his top aides did.”
Breen told Fox News that the case already made its way through the state court process and was thrown out — but that the Biden Department of Justice took up the matter nearly a year later as a form of "political prosecution."
Houck has pleaded "not guilty."
