National Domestic Violence Awareness Project

profeminist:

“Daleiden, who heads the Center for Medical Progress, and his co-defendant Sandra Merritt, posed as human tissue procurers for a fake company called BioMax as part of a hidden-camera investigation into the organization.

The pair attended abortion industry conferences from 2013 to 2015 – posing as exhibitors named Robert Sarkis and Susan Tennenbaum – where they secretly recorded conversations they later posted online. Daleiden also made recordings at Planned Parenthood-affiliated clinics in Texas and Colorado.

The jury of nine men and one woman deliberated for a little less than three days. They found Daleiden and his group, which also includes abortion opponents Albin Rhomberg and Troy Newman, conspired to commit fraud, breach of contract and trespass and to violate federal and state recording laws in Maryland, California and Florida.

At least three congressional committees and law enforcement officials in thirteen states launched investigations into Planned Parenthood after Daleiden and his group released the first video on July 14, 2015. Planned Parenthood was cleared of wrongdoing by the states and so far nothing has come of the federal investigation.

Planned Parenthood lawyers denounced Daleiden’s and Merritt’s beliefs about crimes being committed by abortion doctors as a preposterous pretext to disguise their true mission to destroy Planned Parenthood, thus establishing the requisite malice, oppression, and fraud for the jury to award punitive damages.

The jury also awarded Planned Parenthood and several affiliates roughly $478,000 in compensation for security costs and changes to their vetting procedures. They found the defendants had also conspired to violate the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which triples the compensatory damages.

Taking this into consideration, Planned Parenthood is looking at a $2.275 million verdict, which Daleiden’s lawyer Peter Breen said he will challenge on First Amendment grounds, noting that the compensatory damages stem from the publication of the videos.”

Read the full piece here