Pro-Life Investigators Ordered to Pay $1.5M in Planned Parenthood Baby-Parts Case
May 4, 2020 in News by RBN Staff
Source: Need To Know | Lifesite News
ProLifeAction.org
A jury found the Center for Medical Progress and its undercover investigators guilty of multiple crimes, including violating a federal anti-racketeering law, wiretapping, and engaging in civil conspiracy. These charges were based on the fact that the group videotaped high-ranking Planned Parenthood officials as they haggled over prices of aborted baby parts and discussed how to change abortion procedures to obtain more intact organs. CMP was ordered to pay Planned Parenthood $1.5 million plus attorney fees, which likely will add millions more to what they owe. -GEG
A judge in San Francisco has ruled that the pro-life defendants in the Planned Parenthood Federation of America v. Center for Medical Progress case – popularly known as the “baby body parts case” – must pay Planned Parenthood over $1.5 million, not including attorney fees which will likely add millions more to what they owe the abortion-committing behemoth.
In November, after the six-week courtroom drama presided over by United States District Judge William H. Orrick concluded, a jury took less than two days to find the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) and its undercover investigators guilty of multiple crimes, including violating the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, wiretapping, and engaging in civil conspiracy.
The roster of those found liable reads like a who’s who of pro-life all stars: Troy Newman, longtime pro-life activist and president of Operation Rescue; David Daleiden, project lead of CMP who became the face of the investigation; Sandra Merritt; Albin Rhomberg; and Gerardo Adrian Lopez. Each has been found “joint and severally liable” for the $1,555,084 judgment.
“It is no longer in dispute that Planned Parenthood sold aborted baby parts for profit and that our video evidence was authentic. They admitted it during our trial,” Newman said in a just-released statement. Newman served as a founding board member of CMP during the undercover investigation.
“I believe when the full truth is finally told – and it wasn’t at our trial – we will all be exonerated, and it will be Planned Parenthood that will be held liable for their crimes in a court of law,” said Newman. “I look forward to that day.”
In 2015, CMP released videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s apparently illegal trade in aborted baby body parts after a 30-month undercover operation.
The groundbreaking videos showed top-level Planned Parenthood executives haggling over prices of aborted baby body parts and discussing how to change abortion procedures to obtain more intact organs. The videos sparked public outrage, congressional and senate hearings, and an ongoing Department of Justice criminal investigation into Planned Parenthood.
The lawsuit pitted “those who practice, advocate for, and profit from unthinkably cruel and barbaric acts on the tiniest of humans against a few individuals who had the tenacity, courage, resourcefulness, and faith to walk into the heart of darkness to expose trafficking in the brains, hearts, livers, lungs, and limbs of pre-born babies,” said LifeSiteNews’ Lianne Laurence, who travelled to San Francisco last fall to cover the civil trial.
