Courthouse News reports:
A federal jury found an anti-abortion cohort led by David Daleiden caused substantial harm to Planned Parenthood by infiltrating abortion industry conferences to secretly tape abortion doctors and staff, and awarded punitive damages of $870,000.
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 Planned Parenthood.
The pair attended abortion industry conferences throughout 2013 and 2014 posing 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.
Liberty Counsel has issued daily recaps of the case for weeks, usually accompanying each press release with money beg. Here’s their reaction:
“From the beginning, this trial has been straight-jacketed to tie the hands of the jury and force them to give a verdict to Planned Parenthood. There was critical evidence to our defense that was prohibited from being shown to the jury. There are so many reversible errors that we will address on appeal. This is not the last word.”
As you can see, wingnuts are screaming.
David Daleiden exposed Planned Parenthood illegally selling aborted baby body parts.
PP can’t dispute Daleiden’s videos.
Now Judge William Orrick who used to work with PP, is forcing Daleiden to pay PP $900k.
For trespassing. ? This is not justice.
— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) November 15, 2019
David Daleiden went undercover and exposed Planned Parenthood’s illegal sale of baby parts. A court in California just ordered Daleiden to pay PP 900 thousand dollars for exposing its criminal activity. This is an outrageous assault on the First Amendment and basic human decency.
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) November 15, 2019
BREAKING: A CA jury has ruled AGAINST David Daleiden & Center for Medical Progress’ heroic journalists.
They have been ordered to pay $870k to Planned Parenthood after bravely exposing the abortion corp’s harvesting & trafficking of baby body parts. pic.twitter.com/vLMutYcTwJ
— Live Action (@LiveAction) November 15, 2019
INSANITY.
The pro-abortion bias of this San Francisco judge & jury is beyond the pale. Planned Parenthood should be prosecuted, not the heroic citizen journalists who exposed PP’s horrific selling of the body parts of the babies that they kill@CtrMedProgress, @daviddaleiden https://t.co/UkQvvcNpSL
— Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) November 15, 2019
Apparently today in America it’s OK to ILLEGALLY harvest & profit from the sale of body parts of babies killed by abortion.
…but it’s NOT OK for undercover journalists to expose this injustice.
This is a bad day for human rights and citizen journalism. https://t.co/8wjY6gWMh4
— Susan B. Anthony List (@SBAList) November 15, 2019
We’re thrilled with today’s verdict, which found that the so-called “Center for Medical Progress,” David Daleiden, and others who created a false smear campaign against Planned Parenthood broke multiple state & federal laws. https://t.co/vwaadWAH5y
— Planned Parenthood (@PPFA) November 15, 2019