Although he faces legal challenges in two states over his undercover
investigation into Planned Parenthood, Center for Medical Progress (CMP)
director David Daleiden told supporters he remains confident in his
eventual exoneration.
After releasing a new undercover video on Feb. 2, Daleiden held a
webcast with three of his attorneys to update the cases against him in
Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Houston.
“Planned Parenthood is lashing out because the baby parts issue could
take them down,” Daleiden said. He and other CMP investigators face jail
time and stiff fines stemming from criminal charges and civil lawsuits.
On Aug. 21, overturning an earlier emergency injunction, a Los Angeles
Superior Court judge allowed CMP to release undercover footage of
Daleiden’s meeting with representatives from fetal tissue broker
StemExpress. Despite that favorable ruling, Charles LiMandri, president
and chief counsel of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, said during
the webcast the case against CMP has not gone away. StemExpress is
suing Daleiden and CMP employee Sandra Merritt for invasion of privacy,
even though the conversation took place in a restaurant.
LiMandri also said exceptions to California’s prohibition against
recording without consent of all parties include cases motivated by one
party’s intent “to protect a person from violence.” A baby born alive
after an abortion and then killed and dissected for his or her tissue
and organs meets this standard, LiMandri argued.
According to testimony submitted in the StemExpress case by Theresa
Deisher, a bio-tech firm president and patent-holding adult stem cell
researcher, “several scientific articles” report cases where “an
apparatus is hooked up to the [aborted baby’s] heart to keep it alive
and beating.” For optimal use, certain tissues must be harvested no more
than five minutes after death. Evidence from CMP videos indicated to
Deisher it is “practically certain” some babies whose cadavers
StemExpress trafficked had been kept alive after they were aborted.
Daleiden and CMP therefore “had a reasonable belief that StemExpress has
committed a felony involving violence against [a] person,” Deisher said
in her statement.
The Los Angeles Superior Court has yet to indicate when it will rule on the invasion of privacy lawsuit.
As WORLD reported previously, Daleiden and CMP also face lawsuits in
northern California. On Jan. 14, Planned Parenthood Federation of
America and seven California affiliates filed a lawsuit in a San
Francisco federal court against CMP investigators, alleging
racketeering, invasion of privacy, and other illegal activity. During
the webcast, Catherine Short, vice president of legal affairs for the
Life Legal Defense Fund, noted this lawsuit “stopped short of bringing a
defamation claim” or charges of lying against CMP. Short added that a
July 31 lawsuit brought by the National Abortion Federation (NAF), also
filed in San Francisco, continues to block release of some NAF
conference video footage as yet unseen by the public.
But on Feb. 2, CMP released a new undercover video of “previously
overlooked” material apparently filmed in April at Planned Parenthood
Gulf Coast’s (PPGC) abortion center in Houston. In the video, the
center’s director of research, Melissa Farrell, describes “two levels of
invoicing” for sales of aborted babies’ tissue and organs, including
“brain, kidney, thymus, liver, spleen, femur.” Farrell states her
affiliate would charge “per consent” (per abortion) but also levy an
“overall administrative fee.” Her department’s practice “contributes so
much to the bottom line of our organization,” Farrell said in the video.
But, according to Daleiden that violates a Texas law that prohibits the
buying and selling of human organs for “valuable consideration.”
On Jan. 25, a Houston-area grand jury overlooked evidence against PPGC
and instead brought indictments against Daleiden and Merritt for
allegedly tampering with a government record and offering to buy or sell
human organs. But Peter Breen, a member of the Illinois General
Assembly and special counsel for the Thomas More Society, called the
charges “baseless.” During the webcast, Breen noted journalists have
often misrepresented their identities during investigations of alleged
criminal activity. He pointed to a 60 Minutes story aired Sunday in
which an undercover investigator used hidden cameras to make secret
recordings of New York lawyers who were possibly “concealing
questionable funds.”
Breen said he would file a motion on Feb. 4, when Daleiden and Merritt
turn themselves in at the Harris County courthouse, to quash the
charges.
The state of Texas is still considering criminal charges against PPGC officials.
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