New York Attorney General Letitia James this week dropped a lawsuit filed against a group of anti-abortion protesters, including Brooklyn-based Church at the Rock pastor Kenneth Griepp, who were accused of harassing people at an abortion clinic.
According to a dismissal agreement that was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York and released on Tuesday, the state has agreed to dismiss its complaints regarding about a dozen anti-abortion advocates known as sidewalk counselors, and in return the defendants agreed not to file any counterclaims or appeals.
"The State of New York shall not seek damages or civil penalties in connection with the Court's rulings to date," the agreement notes, adding that "the State of New York's claims against Defendants shall be voluntarily dismissed with prejudice."
The agreement also states that "each of the parties shall bear their own costs and expenses incurred in connection with this action."
In a statement, Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver, which helped to represent one of the defendants, said that the dismissal is a "great victory."
He said, "The New York attorney general's lawsuit was politically motivated and patently frivolous. Our client, Scott Fitchett, did nothing wrong by exercising his First Amendment right to preach the gospel on a public sidewalk."
The lawsuit claimed that the defendants had "subjected incoming patients to a barrage of unwanted physical contact, as well as verbal abuse, threats of harm, and lies about the clinic's hours and its services," as well as "approaching patients to harangue them, sometimes pinning them against the clinic's exterior wall or parking meters, and even forcing them into the street and oncoming traffic as they try to escape the protesters."
Martin Cannon, senior counsel for the Thomas More Society, which represented some of the defendants, said in a statement that "Our clients are peaceful, law-abiding Christians," and his fellow senior counsel, Stephen Crampton, said that "After the evidence was in and the witnesses had testified, the judge saw through the state's case. It collapsed like a house of cards.
"The judge specifically found that witness after witness for the state lied. Our clients refused to be intimidated. They stood for truth, and the truth finally came out. And all of the defendants in this case were ultimately exonerated."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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