On Tuesday, David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt of the Center for Medical Progress were charged with fifteen felonies.
Daleiden and Merritt are antiabortion activists who sought to prove that Planned Parenthood, an organization that sells tissue to medical researchers, was, in fact, harvesting illegal samples and selling them on the open market.
The defendants presented videos as evidence that they claimed proved the corruption in Planned Parenthood. The videotapes were shown in court, and they displayed the two activists collecting their ‘evidence’ by posing as medical professionals from a phony biomedical facility seeking to buy research material samples from Planned Parenthood. One video even showed Daleiden almost purchasing liver tissue from the organization. The videos, fourteen in all, were recorded between October 2013 and July 2015.
Planned Parenthood released a statement saying that the two activists had edited out some parts of the videos to instigate public prejudice against the company.
Conclusion of the Case
The case against Daleiden and Merritt was finally concluded on Tuesday. In the end, both of them were charged with fourteen counts of invaded privacy of medical practitioners, one count for each video, while the fifteenth count was of criminal conspiracy to invade privacy. The case had run from February 2016 when the two defendants were indicted by a grand jury, but later the case was thrown out. The defense attorney declared that the grand jury had abused its powers.
Speaking after the verdict came in, California State Attorney General Xavier Becerra commented, “There is a lesson to be learned from this case: this state will not condone any criminal recording of conversations.”
Daleiden, on the other hand, claimed that the case was ‘bogus’ and cited the reason for his and Merritt’s indictment as Planned Parenthood having ‘cronies who were politically connected.’
Planned Parenthood released a statement after the defendants were charged with the felonies. It said that the message the indictment of the two activists sent to the public was that there are consequences to be faced by those parties that violate the rights of women and those of medical professionals.
The videos that Daleiden and Merritt showcased in court had also prompted congressional investigations into Planned Parenthood. The organization’s cases were combed through by the State of Texas for any evidence that the allegations leveled against the company were true. “After searching in thirteen states, the investigators could find no evidence that Planned Parenthood had done anything illegal, and as a result, no charges were filed,” said Mary Alice Carter, the interim Vice President for Planned Parenthood.
Judge Sam Sparks, the US Judge in the State of Texas in charge of hearing the case, also ruled on the fate of the company. Pending the congressional investigations, Sparks reviewed the case against Planned Parenthood. When investigators could not find what Sparks called ‘an iota of evidence,’ Sparks ruled in the company’s favor.
Sparks ruled that the company would continue to receive state-funded Medicaid to support its over twelve thousand dependents.
