Breaking: Planned Parenthood Suing Center for Medical Progress
The lawsuit charges that CMP, its leaders, and co-conspirators engaged in illegal conduct that includes violating the RICO Act. (Photo: Getty Images)
This morning, Planned Parenthood Federation of America filed a complaint in California against the Center for Medical Progress, the antiabortion group that released a series of undercover “sting” videos this summer and fall claiming that the reproductive and sexual health care provider was illegally profiting from fetal tissue donation programs, and its officers. The complaint is for damages and declaratory and injunctive relief as well as a demand for a jury trial. The lawsuit charges that CMP, its leaders, and co-conspirators engaged in illegal conduct that includes violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act, wire fraud, mail fraud, invasion of privacy, illegal secret recording, and trespassing.
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Kathy Kneer, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, reminded reporters this afternoon that no investigation — not those conducted but state-level law enforcement or any Congressional committee — thus far has found Planned Parenthood guilty of any kind of wrongdoing. Rather, the series of events triggered by the release of the CMP tapes — including multiple votes to eliminate Planned Parenthood as a Medicaid and Title X provider and to implement a federal abortion ban, neither of which have successfully passed Congress — is instead a larger, orchestrated attack to end safe, legal abortion in America.
The complaint filed this morning makes public for the first time the names of several members of the Center for Medical Progress who had previously only been identified via alias, including the woman identified in several of the tapes as “Susan Tennenbaum,” who in the suit is named as a co-defendant as Sandra Susan Merritt. The Center for Medical Progress, Biomax (the shell company founded by the Center for Medical Progress under which they conducted the activities seen in the videos), David Daleiden (aka “Robert Sarkis”), Troy Newman, Albin Rhomberg, Phillip S. Cronin, and Gerardo Adrian Lopez are also named as defendants.
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In addition to Merritt, Cronin and Lopez have also not been previously named in connection with CMP. Cronin is an attorney based in Fresno, Calif., and Lopez is an employee of Biomax who is accused of attending and secretly recording many meetings and conferences.
Beth Parker, the chief legal counsel for Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, told reporters this afternoon that not only did the defendants file false information three years ago to achieve tax-exempt status, they also infiltrated a National Abortion Federation meeting held in San Francisco where they signed — and thus broke — a nondisclosure agreement and aggressively pursued a relationship with Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services. According to Parker, the defendants then lied their way into three closed Planned Parenthood medical conferences, secretly taped participants, and made illegal and inappropriate proposals to Planned Parenthood staff — proposals that no Planned Parenthood staffer ever agreed to. They then visited two Planned Parenthood health centers using fake IDs, signed confidentiality agreements, and secretly taped conversations with providers without consent and blatantly tried to get them to break the law. Again, Parker says, no Planned Parenthood employee ever signed an illegal contract or did anything illegal that Biomax suggested they do.
Parker cited a “nine-fold increase in threats of violence at [Planned Parenthood] health centers]” since the release of the CMP tapes, “culminating in the Colorado shooting” that occurred in Colorado Springs the day after Thanksgiving. “It’s time to hold the antiabortion movement accountable,” she said.
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Amy Bomse, Planned Parenthood’s counsel at the firm of Arnold & Porter, said that the claim filed this morning shows a pattern of illegal conduct on behalf of CMP/Biomax that is consistent with members of a criminal enterprise. In addition to violating federal law, Bomse says the defendants also violated laws in California, Florida, and Maryland in pursuit of their attempts to attack abortion access in America. She underscored CMP’s use of false information, false identification, fraudulent communication with Planned Parenthood staff, and invasion of right to privacy of those they secretly recorded — actions that resulted in security threats to the individuals featured in CMP’s videos, including death threats. Bomse also mentioned CMP’s breach of contract, including nondisclosure agreements and violation of California’s Unfair Business Practice Act.
“The laws are clear,” Bomse said, “and David Daleiden and his co-defendants knowingly violated them.”
Planned Parenthood is seeking compensatory, punitive, and statutory damages, as well as attorney’s fees and a permanent injunctive release from the defendants.
“The people behind this fraud lied and broke the law in order to spread malicious lies about Planned Parenthood,” said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “This lawsuit exposes the elaborate, illegal conspiracy designed to block women’s access to safe and legal abortion, and we filed the case to hold them accountable.”
Parker told Yahoo Health during today’s press call that though the organization has “heard through the rumor mill that [CMP] is still working on producing new videos, no new videos have been released at this time. They’re just re-hashing old materials.”
