Planned Parenthood on Tuesday issued a scathing response to the news that Daleiden would not face prosecution. I respect their decision on this difficult case.” “All the evidence uncovered in the course of this investigation was presented to the grand jury. “As I stated at the outset of this investigation, we must go where the evidence leads us,” Anderson said in January. Initially, though, the district attorney, Devon Anderson, said she supported the grand jury’s decision. The Harris County district attorney’s office also asked for the charges to be dropped. In April, attorneys for Daleiden and Merritt argued that the grand jury, because it was only charged with investigating Planned Parenthood, had exceeded its mandate when it indicted the two activists.
Both have previously rejected plea deals for probation. Merritt and Daleidin each faced a maximum of 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. In addition to the felony tampering charge, Daleiden received a second indictment under a law prohibiting the purchase and sale of human organs.
The grand jury cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing.
#Planned parenthood video makers charged series
He used the footage in an explosive series of videos accusing the women’s healthcare provider of illegally selling fetal tissue for profit.īut Daleiden’s sting backfired when a grand jury, which the Harris County district attorney’s office convened to look into the activities of Planned Parenthood, indicted Daleiden and Merritt instead. Once inside, Daleiden secretly filmed their encounters. The district judge Brock Thomas dismissed charges of tampering with government records against David Daleiden, 27, and Sandra Merritt, ruling that the grand jury which indicted the two activists had exceeded its authority.Ī grand jury indicted Daleiden and Merritt in January for using false driver’s licenses in order to pass themselves off as executives of a biomedical research company to a Houston Planned Parenthood clinic. A Texas judge on Tuesday dismissed all criminal charges facing two anti-abortion activists who had assumed false identities in an attempt to buy fetal tissue from a Planned Parenthood in Houston and film the transaction.
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