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Home Front: Culture Wars

Planned Parenthood wins $2.2 million verdict against anti-abortion activists

2019-11-18

[San Francisco Chronicle] A federal jury in San Francisco awarded Planned Parenthood more than $2.2 million in damages Friday against antiabortion activists who posed as fetal researchers to enter abortion-rights meetings and secretly record participants, rejecting the activists’ claims that they were acting as undercover journalists to expose wrongdoing.

After a monthlong trial, the jurors found that David Daleiden, his employee Sandra Merritt and their collaborators had violated state and federal laws against trespassing, fraud, clandestine recording and racketeering, as well as the nondisclosure agreements the two signed before entering the meetings.

NDAs matter.

Jurors awarded Planned Parenthood more than $500,000 as compensation for the intrusions and $870,000 in punitive damages. Under federal racketeering law, most of the compensation will be tripled.

Jurors also concluded that both Daleiden and Merritt had violated a California criminal law against secretly recording conversations without consent. They both face criminal charges under that law in a separate proceeding in San Francisco Superior Court. Friday’s verdict has no direct impact on the criminal prosecution, which has a higher standard of proof, but it suggested that the defendants have a formidable task in justifying their actions to a jury.

Daleiden, who heads an organization called the Center for Medical Progress, and Merritt entered the abortion conferences by posing as researchers for a nonexistent company called BioMax Procurement Services. The conferences included the annual meetings of the National Abortion Federation in San Francisco in 2014 and in Baltimore in 2015, as well as Planned Parenthood gatherings.

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