The wife of controversial abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell will be freed on bail despite several charges against her in connection with the botched abortion and abortion-infanticides Gosnell committed.
Gosnell and several staffers at his abortion center, including his wife Pearl, were arrested in January after a grand jury indicted them on multiple charges after officials raided his abortion business following a woman’s death and discovered a “shop of horrors” filled with bags of bodies and body parts of deceased unborn children and babies killed in infanticides.
Gosnell, who used a method of live birth abortion to birth babies and snap their spinal cords with scissors, was arraigned and held without bail. Pearl Gosnell, Kermit’s 49-year-old wife who has no medical license, faces a charge of providing an abortion at 24 or more weeks and conspiracy and other charges. Pearl was in jail because she was unable to make a $1 million bail.
Earlier this month, Pearl’s attorney asked a Philadelphia judge to reduce the bail amount so she can be released from prison while the trial on the charges moves ahead. The attorney filed a motion to do that and Common Pleas Court Judge Benjamin Lerner held a hearing on the motion. Today, news came down that Pearl is expected to be released to house arrest after Lerner reduced her bail to $50,000 and her release date is expected to be in two weeks, according to new Gosnell attorney Michael Medway.
“The bail that was set was a knee-jerk reaction bail,” said Medway, according to the Associated Press “The bail was way out of whack.”
Medway contends Pearl Gosnell told him she is innocent of the charges and plans to fight them in court.
Judge Lerner also reduced the bail amount for Gosnell staffer Eileen O’Neil, 54, who was charged with theft by deception, conspiracy, perjury and false swearing and falsely posing as a doctor at the abortion center. Although she was able to post the new $30,000 bail amount (lowered from $1 million), the judge required her to travel no more than 35 miles away from her home, and she must check in with the court weekly and is barred from practicing medicine in any way.
Last March, the Pennsylvania Department of Health found the abortion center had violated more than a dozen health and safety laws ranging from a lack of equipment and drugs for emergency resuscitation to not having a way to get patients to a hospital or a backup physician. The Philadelphia Inquirer indicated at the time that Gosnell also delayed the report to the state concerning Mongar. He had until April 12 to respond to the charges but has failed to do so, and missed an extension taking him to April 30.
In the raid, officials found jars containing the remains of pre-born babies dating back 30 years along with filthy and unsafe conditions and evidence that unlicensed workers had been illegally treating patients. The office has no access for a stretcher in the case of an emergency. In previous emergencies, care was delayed because exit doors were padlocked shut or blocked with debris from the clinic.
The abortion industry has been forced to suspend two abortion businesses that employed embattled abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell, who has been the subject of national controversy over his abortion business in Philadelphia.
Following revelations that Gosnell is associatedwith two other abortion centers in Louisiana and Delaware, the National Abortion Federation made the decision to suspend the memberships of both. Atlantic Women’s Medical Services, the Delaware abortion business that employed Gosnell one day a week to do abortions, and the Delta Clinic abortion center of Baton Rouge, have both had their memberships suspended. Leroy Brinkley owns both abortion businesses. Atlantic operates abortion centers in Wilmington and Dover.
Delaware law does not require inspections of abortion centers but Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden said his office will launch a “wide-ranging” investigation of Gosnell and probe his work at the Delaware abortion facility given the vast problems at his Pennsylvania abortion center.
Authorities searching the facility last year found bags and bottles holding aborted babies scattered around the building, jars containing babies’ severed feet lining a shelf, as well as filthy, unsanitary furniture and equipment.
The grand jury investigation also shows state officials did nothingwhen reports came in about problems at Gosnell’s abortion center, which has upset incoming pro-life Governor Tom Corbett who fired several state employees.
