Pro-life centers targeted by 70% of abortion-related violent threats since Dobbs decision: FBI
FBI Director Christopher Wray said Thursday during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing that since the Supreme Courts Dobbs decision, 70% of abortion-related threats have been against pro-life centers.
The Justice Department charged two more people on Wednesday for carrying out a targeted attack on a pro-life pregnancy center in Winter Haven, Florida.
The DOJ announced that a federal grand jury returned an indictment against Gabriella Oropesa and Annarella Rivera for engaging in a conspiracy to prevent employees of reproductive health services facilities from providing those services, along with co-conspirators Caleb Freestone, 27, and Amber Smith-Stewart, 23, whom DOJ charged in January.
The crew allegedly targeted a pro-life pregnancy center and vandalized those facilities with spray-painted threats, including, "If abortions aren’t safe than [sic] neither are you," "YOUR TIME IS UP!!," "WE’RE COMING for U," and "We are everywhere," on the building.
Pro-abortion extremist group Janes Revenge targeted the wrong address at first when attempting to vandalize Jackson Right to Lifes office building. (Photo courtesy of Kathy Potts)
Those messages are consistent with those that the far-left group, Jane’s Revenge, took credit for leaving spray-painted on pro-life centers after vandalizing dozens of them following the leaked Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs v. Whole Women’s Health case that eventually led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade last summer.
DOJ said similar facilities in Hollywood and Hialeah, Florida, were also allegedly targeted.
Law enforcement separated pro-choice and pro-life protesters outside the Supreme Court (Fox News Digital/Lisa Bennatan)
DOJ is accusing Rivera, along with Freestone and Smith-Stewart, of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, by using threats of force to intimidate and interfere with the employees pro-life center in Winter Haven that were providing or seeking to provide reproductive health services, and by intentionally damaging and destroying the facility’s property because the facility provides reproductive health services.
The FACE Act makes it a federal crime to use or threaten to use force to "injure, intimidate, or interfere" with a person seeking reproductive health services, or intentionally damage a facility that offers reproductive health services.
People rally in support of abortion rights at the state Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., in May 2019. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
If convicted, Rivera, Freestone and Smith-Stewart each face up to a maximum of 12 years in prison, three years of supervised release and fines of up to $350,000. Oropesa faces up to a maximum of 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.
Florida’s Republican Attorney General also filed a similar state action against Freestone and Smith-Steward on Wednesday, citing FACE Act violations for which the state should impose up to $140,000 fines each.
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"Antifa and Jane’s Revenge are criminal organizations and must answer for their crimes in Florida," Attorney General Ashley Moody told Fox News Digital. "I am taking action to hold their members accountable for attempting to intimidate and threaten law-abiding citizens in our state."
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