State prosecutors have filed new, more specific invasion-of-privacy charges against two antiabortion activists for secretly recording conversations at national meetings of abortion providers, after a San Francisco judge dismissed most of the initial charges.
David Daleiden, leader of a group called the Center for Medical Progress, and an employee, Sandra Merritt, posed as fetal researchers to gain entry to the conventions of the National Abortion Federationin San Francisco in 2014 and Baltimore in 2015.
Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office charged Daleiden and Merritt in March with 14 counts of violating a California law against recording conversations without consent, in incidents at the San Francisco convention and meetings elsewhere in the state.
Last month, Superior Court Judge Christopher Hite dismissed the charges, saying prosecutors had failed to specify which video recordings were made illegally. He refused, however, to dismiss a charge that the pair conspired to violate privacy rights.
Becerra’s office has now refiled the charges, with numerical identifications for each video. Prosecutors say they have given defense lawyers the names of each person whose conversation was recorded, under court orders to keep the names confidential.
But a lawyer for Merritt said Friday he will challenge the refiled charges because they’re still not specific enough.
The new set of allegations “lists videos generally but doesn’t list specific conversations on those videos, so it’s hard to know what conversations they’re referring to,” said Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, a religious nonprofit law firm.
Staver said Merritt would again seek dismissal of the charges when she and Daleiden are arraigned July 17. A lawyer for Daleiden did not respond to a request for comment.
In a separate case, U.S. District Judge William Orrick of San Francisco has scheduled a hearing Tuesday on whether to hold Daleiden and his lawyers in contempt of court for posting links to many of the recordings in May.
Orrick had issued an injunction last year prohibiting Daleiden and his group from making the recordings public. His attorneys in the criminal case have said they obtained the material as evidence from prosecutors and did not know they were forbidden to release it.
Full story at SF Gate.
St. Thomas More, pray for us.
One wonders – why weren’t Enrique Pearce & Larry Brinkin brought up on Similar State Charges of taking / spreading videos of Sadistic Toddler Abuse & Sodomy, including hidden camera pics of Boys in the 8-12 year old range. Could it have to do with their insider status in our One Party State?
Consultant Pearce had shocking photos, videos of abuse, DA says
https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Political-consultant-Pearce-had-videos-of-child-6261822.php
Enrique Pearce, a campaign consultant who worked with Mayor Ed Lee and many other well-known political figures in San Francisco, had photos and videos of infants and young children being raped and sexually violated when he was arrested –
“Babies as young as infants in onesies were being…
Because, Michael, most of California’s politicians neither care for children before they are born nor after. Not unless they can be used for their own evil purposes (to get votes for immoral legislation). It is the same with immigration. Most of them only want to bring people in who will keep abortion and biologically challenged “marriages” (aka same-sex “marriages”) going.