RICO Penalties Boost Damages to $2.2 Million in Daleiden Case, by Joan Desmond

“This is a dangerous precedent for citizen journalism and First Amendment civil rights across the country,” said the Center for Medical Progress.

By Joan Desmond, EWTN News, 11/15/19

SAN FRANCISCO—David Daleiden, the Center for Medical Progress and four co-defendants were found guilty in a civil trial and face actual and punitive damages totaling $2.2 million, his lawyers at the Thomas More Society confirmed this afternoon.

“This lawsuit is payback for David Daleiden exposing Planned Parenthood’s dirty business of buying and selling fetal parts and organs,” said lead Thomas More Society defense attorney Peter Breen in a statement after the verdict was announced at the San Francisco courthouse.

“We intend to seek vindication for David on appeal. His investigation into criminal activity by America’s largest abortion provider utilized standard investigative journalism techniques, those applied regularly by news outlets across the country.”

“David’s findings revealed practices so abhorrent that the United States Congress issued criminal referrals for Planned Parenthood, and numerous states and elected officials have moved to strip it of funding,” added Breen. “Rather than face up to its heinous doings, Planned Parenthood chose to persecute the person who exposed it. I am fully confident that when this case has run its course, justice will prevail, and David will be vindicated.”

In the civil trial, Planned Parenthood lawyers argued that Daleiden and his co-defendants had caused the nation’s largest abortion provider harm by secretly taping conversations with staff, and infiltrating conferences and facilities under false identities. The jury agreed and awarded the plaintiffs damages of $870,000 for trespass, fraud, breach of contract and illegal recording. ….

Read more at  http://www.ncregister.com/blog/joan-desmond/jury-awards-pp-870k-in-case-against-daleiden