Prosecutors in California have reached a plea deal to end a nearly decade-long court fight with an anti-abortion activist and journalist who together exposed Planned Parenthood for allegedly trafficking fetal body parts.
David Daleiden, founder of the Center for Medical Progress, and journalist Sandra Merritt, said Monday the criminal cases against them have ended, with the California Attorney General’s office agreeing to a plea deal that includes no prison time or fines, Live Action reported Monday.
Videos taken by Daleiden and Merritt exposed the scandal after they went undercover at various locations, including the National Abortion Federation’s 2014 and 2015 convention and trade shows. The videos, some of which were also taken from inside Planned Parenthood offices, showed executives discussing price negotiations and sales of human body parts.
The videos showed Planned Parenthood executives “haggling” with companies like StemExpress over the prices of organs and tissues taken from aborted children, some of whom were allegedly born alive before their hearts were harvested.
After some videos were released, former Vice President Kamala Harris, then California’s Democrat attorney general, met with Planned Parenthood officials in 2016, Live Action reported, after which she ordered criminal investigations into Merritt and Daleiden, including a search of Daleiden’s home.
Harris’ successor as attorney general, Democrat Xavier Becerra, who would become Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden, charged them both with violating California’s recording law. The state had never criminally prosecuted undercover journalists for recordings made in the public interest, according to Liberty Counsel, a Christian legal group that represented Merritt.
Merritt and Daleiden were each charged with 14 felony counts of unlawfully recording a conversation and one felony count of criminal conspiracy.
Liberty Counsel said according to Merritt’s deal, she will plead no contest to one felony charge, which after a one-year probationary period will be reduced to a misdemeanor and then expunged from her record. The state will also drop all remaining felony counts.
“The deal is essentially a complete victory for Merritt in this politically motivated criminal case,” Liberty Counsel said in a news release.
Details of Daleiden’s plea deal were not released. According to the Center for Medical Progress, he was represented by the Dhillon Law Group, whose managing partner, Harmeet K. Dhillon, was picked by President Donald Trump to lead the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
“After 9 years of unprecedented political prosecution, putting an end to the lawfare launched by Kamala Harris is a huge victory for my investigative reporting and for the public’s right to know the truth about Planned Parenthood’s sale of aborted baby body parts,” Daleiden told Live Action. “Now we must all get to work to protect families and infants from the criminal abortion-industrial complex.”
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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