Two people are facing federal felony charges for vandalizing offices owned by religious groups offering alternatives to abortion to pregnant women in Florida, officials said Tuesday.
Caleb Freestone, 27, and Amber Smith-Stewart, 23, were indicted Jan. 18 by a grand jury in Tampa on one count of conspiracy against human rights and two counts of violating clinic entrances.
indictment The couple's opposition was revealed on Tuesday and it is alleged they targeted three so-called pregnancy centers that offer alternatives to abortion, including counselling, pregnancy testing and ultrasounds.
On May 28, 2022, the couple and other unnamed accomplices allegedly went to one of the Archdiocese of Miami facilities in Hollywood, between Fort Lauderdale and Miami, where they drew a threat: “If abortion is not SAFE, then neither are you.”
At the time of the alleged attack, the Supreme Court had not yet the right to abortion has been abolished throughout the countryBut Judge Samuel Alito's draft opinion leaked online this indicated that they were willing to do so.
“We believe the purpose of this vandalism was to frighten and intimidate us,” Rebecca Brady, archdiocesan director of the group Respect Life, said during the vandalism, adding that the culprits were captured on surveillance footage which was then handed over to police.
The photo of the vandalism also shows an anarchist symbol and the words “JANE'S REVENGE” referring to a group of militant abortion supporters has been created after Alito's opinion was leaked. A blog who allegedly belongs to the group Jane's Revenge, celebrates attacks on so-called “fake clinics”, including one in Hollywood.
Two days after the final publication of the court decision to cancel Roe v. Wade On June 24, the couple was allegedly among a group that spray-painted another clinic in Winter Haven, east of Tampa. The vandalism included the words “We're Everywhere,” “WE ARE COMING FOR YOU,” and “YOUR TIME IS UP!!”
On July 3, they allegedly vandalized another facility in Hialeah in the Greater Miami area using the same threat as the Hollywood clinic.
“The plan and purpose of the conspiracy was to attack reproductive health services facilities that provide alternatives to abortion by spray-painting threats of force or other intimidating messages on facility property, and to injure, harass, threaten, and intimidate employees of these facilities in their ability to provide reproductive health services,” prosecutors wrote in the indictment. conclusion.
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, is a 1994 law that makes it a federal crime to threaten or interfere with clinics that provide abortion or other reproductive health services.
Planned Parenthood has warned people wanting to have an abortion that “crisis pregnancy centers” like the ones attacked in Florida “look like real medical centers, but they are run by anti-abortion activists who have a shadowy, harmful goal: to scare, shame or force you into not having an abortion, and to lie about abortion, birth control and sexual health.”
If convicted, prosecutors say Freestone and Smith-Stewart could spend up to 12 years in prison and be fined up to $350,000.
“I applaud our police and justice system for taking these cases of domestic terrorism against pro-life targets very seriously,” Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski told BuzzFeed News. “Hate crimes of this nature will not be tolerated.”
Federal court records did not list an attorney for the couple. Smith-Stewart did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent to a number they listed in court records.
