Mark Houck, a The Catholic anti-abortion activist, who was accused of assaulting a 72-year-old volunteer at a Philadelphia clinic exterior of Deliberate Parenthood, was acquitted on Monday of expenses that he orchestrated the encounter to intimidate the group’s employees. The Philadelphia investigator studies.
The Justice Division charged Houk with two violations of the Free Entry to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE). The DOJ charged Houck with twice assaulting the volunteer at Deliberate Parenthood’s Elizabeth Blackwell Well being Middle.
Based on the DOJ indictment obtained from The each day beast, the then 47-year-old Houck “compelled BL to the bottom” after which in a second altercation the identical day “verbally confronted BL and forcibly pushed BL to the bottom”. Houck did so “as a result of BL was a volunteer escort on the reproductive well being clinic,” in response to the indictment. The second assault induced “accidents to BL that required medical consideration.”
“Assault is all the time a critical offense and below the FACE Act it’s a federal crime if the sufferer is assaulted due to his or her connection to a reproductive well being clinic,” U.S. Lawyer Jacqueline Romero mentioned within the assertion.
FACE regulation makes it a federal crime to make use of power, threats or bodily restraint to dam entry to reproductive well being clinics. Houck was arrested by armed FBI brokers at his Bucks County dwelling final 12 months and confronted as much as 11 years in jail plus three years of supervised launch and a most effective of $350,000.
The alleged assault was denounced by MAGA media and portrayed by Houck and his supporters as a show of conservative persecution. Earlier, Jim Jordan indicated his intention to make the case a spotlight of the Home GOP’s new Particular Committee on “Arming Authorities.”
“This case was nothing however an intimidation tactic by the Biden Division of Justice,” mentioned Peter Breen, legal professional for the Thomas Extra Society — a Catholic public curiosity regulation agency — representing Houck questioner. “This matter ought to by no means have drawn the eye of the Justice Division. And we right here hope that the message has been despatched to Washington DC to cease this harassment.”
Houck didn’t deny twice shoving Bruce Love, a affected person companion at Elizabeth Blackwell Well being Middle, throughout their altercation in 2021, in response to the report.
“This trial isn’t about standpoints. It isn’t about folks’s views on reproductive well being,” Sanjay Patel, litigator with the Justice Division’s Civil Rights Division, mentioned throughout Friday’s closing arguments. “It is about an aggressive man who used his dimension and youth to shove a grandfather as a result of the clinic gives providers he disapproves of.”