Attorneys for David Daleiden, the pro-life advocate indicted by a grand jury after he exposed the sale of aborted baby body parts at Planned Parenthood, says Daleiden is innocent of the two charges the grand jury filed.
As LifeNews reported Monday, a Texas grand jury has ignored the videos exposing a Houston-based Planned Parenthood abortion clinic caught selling aborted baby body parts and has instead indicted the man behind producing the expose’ videos.
The Texas grand jury indicted David Daleiden and another pro-life activist, Sandra Merritt, behind the videos. Instead of prosecuting Planned Parenthood for selling aborted baby parts, Daleiden was indicted for buying them.
Daleiden and Merritt were charged with one felony related to tampering with a governmental record and a misdemeanor count related to buying human tissue. The felony charge was in reference to the use of a fake ID. If convicted, Daleiden faces 20 years in prison while Planned Parenthood officials face no legal consequences for their actions.
SIGN THE PETITION: Drop the Charges Against David Daleiden and Charge Planned Parenthood
But in an interview with CNA, attorneys for Daleiden insist that the use of a fake ID is protected under Texas law for citizen journalists engaging in the kind of undercover activities Daleiden and his team were conducting.
Daleiden’s use of a false identification, linked to his undercover report on Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in Houston, is “standard undercover technique” and is allowed under Texas law, Peter Breen of the Thomas More Society told CNA.
Texas law prohibits the use of a governmental record “with knowledge of its falsity” or any “false alteration” of a governmental record. It clarifies that it is a misdemeanor “unless the actor’s intent is to defraud or harm another, in which event the offense is a state jail felony” and “a felony of the second degree.”
Thus, by charging them with a second-degree felony, the Houston grand jury determined that Daleiden and Merritt operated with the intent “to defraud or harm” Planned Parenthood.
However, this tampering statute was intended for serious crimes like identity theft, Breen maintained. It is not intended to prohibit the use of false identification for undercover journalism – which is what the two investigators were doing.
What is clear, Breen maintained, is that Daleiden and his fellow investigators “have rock-solid evidence” that Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast is changing its abortion procedures to better obtain fetal tissue, and is altering its accounting practices.
And when ti comes to the charge against Daleiden of violating a teas law prohibiting the sale of human organs, Breen said Daleiden is not guilty on that count as well.
Daleiden clearly did not have the intent to purchase fetal tissue because he did not have the resources to “buy, store, or process baby body parts,” Breen said.
So what exactly are the charges Daleiden is facing from the grand jury? Pro-life attorney Katie Short, with the Life legal Defense Foundation, which is provided legal support for Daleiden and his team, informed LifeNews of what he is facing.
Short indicates the tampering charge has to do with the CMP investigators’ use of fake IDs to gain access to confidential meetings and events with top Planned Parenthood officials for the purposes of exposing their purchasing of aborted baby parts. This is the same charge that would be leveled at a minor who made or bought a fake ID to buy alcohol, except the minor would be breaking that law and David wasn’t engaging in an illegal activity with the fake ID.
“The tampering charge, which is a felony offense, is for the use of a California identification in order to enter the Planned Parenthood clinic for the purpose of investigation,” Short explained. “It is the same charge that would be leveled at a minor who used a fake ID to purchase alcohol. However, the law also provides a defense where the false information has ‘no effect on the government’s purpose for requiring the governmental record.”
“The charges filed against Daleiden and Merritt do not in any way diminish the overwhelming evidence obtained by the Center for Medical Progress showing that Planned Parenthood has engaged in and is more than willing to profit from the sale of fetal tissue,” Short goes on to say. “Life Legal continues to coordinate with David’s attorney in Texas and remains committed to his defense in the lawsuits filed against him by the National Abortion Federation, StemExpress, and Planned Parenthood.”
The charges elevated to felonies because the grand jury alleges the IDs were used “with intent to cause harm” to Planned Parenthood. Under Texas law, the charge carries a penalty of two to 20 years in prison.
As far as buying aborted baby body parts is concerned, Daleiden emailed Planned Parenthood asking to buy fetal tissue for $1,600. Whether Daleiden actually intended to buy the parts parts doesn’t matter in the eyes of Texas law, the grand jury contends.
Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson announced that Harris County’s investigation into the criminal conduct at Houston’s Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast has ended. Anderson said that the case is closed and that she has no further recourse.
Anderson has come under severe criticism since the indictment was released. She is facing criticism over her failure to prosecute an abortionist known as the Kermit Gosnell of Houston.
Anderson oversaw a previous abortion-related grand jury investigation of Houston abortionist Douglas Karpen after Operation Rescue released evidence in the form of photos and witness testimony that babies were being born alive during abortions and intentionally killed by twisting their necks. This case garnered publicity in the wake of the conviction of Pennsylvania abortionist Kermit Gosnell on three counts of First Degree Murder for intentionally killing babies born alive during abortions in a similar fashion.
That Anderson-led grand jury failed to indict Karpen despite the considerable evidence against him.
Karpen was represented at his trial by attorney Chip Lewis, who donated more than $25,000 to Anderson’s re-election campaign.
Anderson has come under considerably fire for what pro-life advocates call a politically motivated indictment and because a Planned Parenthood board member works for Anderson as an assistant district attorney. Lauren Reeder is a prosecutor in the Harris County District Attorney’s criminal family law division. Reeder is listed as a non-compensated “Director” on the 990 Tax Form for 2014 filed by Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast.
Although Anderson indicates Reeder had no role in the Daleiden indictment, there’s really no way of knowing if that is truly the case. Because of that, pro-life advocates have called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into the indictment and the fact that the grand jury never voted on charges related to Planned Parethood’s sale of aborted babies.
The expose’ videos catching Planned Parenthood officials selling the body parts of aborted babies have shocked the nation. Here is a list of all eleven:
- In the first video: Dr. Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood commented on baby-crushing: “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”
- In the second video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Mary Gatter joked, “I want a Lamborghini” as she negotiated the best price for baby parts.
- In the third video: Holly O’Donnell, a former Stem Express employee who worked inside a Planned Parenthood clinic, detailed first-hand the unspeakable atrocities and how she fainted in horror over handling baby legs.
- In the fourth video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Savita Ginde stated, “We don’t want to do just a flat-fee (per baby) of like, $200. A per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it.” She also laughed while looking at a plate of fetal kidneys that were “good to go.”
- In the fifth video: Melissa Farrell of Planned Parenthood-Gulf Coast in Houston boasted of Planned Parenthood’s skill in obtaining “intact fetal cadavers” and how her “research” department “contributes so much to the bottom line of our organization here, you know we’re one of the largest affiliates, our Research Department is the largest in the United States.”
- In the sixth video: Holly O’Donnell described technicians taking fetal parts without patient consent: “There were times when they would just take what they wanted. And these mothers don’t know. And there’s no way they would know.”
- In the seventh and perhaps most disturbing video: Holly O’Donnell described the harvesting, or “procurement,” of organs from a nearly intact late-term fetus aborted at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s Alameda clinic in San Jose, CA. “‘You want to see something kind of cool,’” O’Donnell says her supervisor asked her. “And she just taps the heart, and it starts beating. And I’m sitting here and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating, and I don’t know what to think.”
- In the eighth video: StemExpress CEO Cate Dyer admits Planned Parenthood sells “a lot of” fully intact aborted babies.
- The ninth video: catches a Planned Parenthood medical director discussing how the abortion company sells fully intact aborted babies — including one who “just fell out” of the womb.
- The 10th video: catches the nation’s biggest abortion business selling specific body parts — including the heart, eyes and “gonads” of unborn babies.The video also shows the shocking ways in which Planned Parenthood officials admit that they are breaking federal law by selling aborted baby body parts for profit.
- Unreleased Videos: Unreleased videos from CMP show Deb Vanderhei of Planned Parenthood caught on tape talking about how Planned Parenthood abortion business affiliates may “want to increase revenue [from selling baby parts] but we can’t stop them…” Another video has a woman talking about the “financial incentives” of selling aborted baby body parts.
- The 11th video: catches a texas Planned Parenthood abortionist planning to sell the intact heads of aborted babies for research. Amna Dermish is caught on tape describing an illegal partial-birth abortion procedure to terminate living, late-term unborn babies which she hopes will yield intact fetal heads for brain harvesting.
SIGN THE PETITION! Congress Must Investigate Planned Parenthood for Selling Aborted Baby Parts
The full, unedited videos have confirmed that revelations that some aborted baby remains sold by Planned Parenthood go to biotech companies for the purpose of creating “humanized” mice. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood has been exposed as having sold body parts from aborted babies for as much as 15 years.
The federal law that technically prohibits the sale of aborted babies and their body parts was written by a pro-abortion Congressman decades ago and essentially spells out a process by which sellers of aborted baby body parts can meet certain criteria that allows the sales to be legal. That’s why a Colorado congressman has introduced legislation to totally ban the sales of aborted baby body parts.
