CV NEWS FEED // The State of California agreed Jan. 27 to drop all charges against David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt for their undercover videos of conversations with Planned Parenthood officials from nearly 10 years ago. The prosecution against the pro-life activists was first launched in 2016 by then-Attorney General Kamala Harris.
The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) announced Monday that Daleiden and Merritt had reached a plea agreement with the California Attorney General’s Office. Daleiden oversees CMP, and Merritt worked as an investigative reporter for the pro-life group.
Daleiden hailed the plea deal as “a huge victory” after going through nine years of prosecution weaponized for political purposes.
“Now we all must get to work to protect families and infants from the criminal abortion-industrial complex,” Daleiden stated in CMP’s press release. He added that the end of the case will allow him to focus on “CMP’s mission to report on the injustices of taxpayer-funded experiments on aborted babies and continue to expand our groundbreaking investigative reporting.”
CMP reported that the agreement is “a negotiated settlement with zero punishment.” It is in exchange for a new “no contest” plea by Daleiden and Merritt on one video recording charge.
There is no admission of wrongdoing, as well as no jail time, fines, or probation, according to CMP. “The new ‘no contest’ plea — which cannot be used adversely — will be entered into judgment as a misdemeanor in 6 to 12 months, and then converted to a ‘not guilty’ plea, dismissed, and expunged,” CMP stated.
Merritt and Daleiden produced a series of undercover videos recorded at the National Abortion Federation’s (NAF) 2014 and 2015 abortion convention and trade shows, according to a press release from Merritt’s legal defense team.
While undercover, the journalists used false IDs and names and secretly recorded various conversations. According to a Jan. 28 press release from the Office of the California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Daleiden and Merritt both were found guilty of one felony count of violation of a California law prohibiting the recording of confidential conversations, and one of the plea deal agreements is that they may not name or have any contact with those involved in the conversations.
According to CMP’s press release, the undercover work “led to a $7.8 million settlement in which two companies admitted illegally selling aborted fetuses from Planned Parenthood in southern California, a settlement with disgorgement of profits from the sale of aborted fetal organs in Arizona, and the disqualification of Planned Parenthood from state and federal funding in Texas for violations of medical standards and ethics documented on the undercover footage—where Planned Parenthood now faces a nearly $2 billion federal False Claims Act case from the disqualification.”
Hon. Steve Cooley, the former Los Angeles County district attorney who led Daleiden’s defense team, said that in his five decades as an attorney he had never seen “such a blatant exercise of selective investigation and vindictive prosecution.” He added that the CA attorneys general who opened and pursued the case for almost 10 years “should be ashamed” for how they weaponized their office.
Liberty Counsel represented Merritt for more than a decade and stated in a Jan. 27 press release that she had been charged with 16 felonies and had been facing over 10 years in prison. According to Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver, the plea agreement drops the charges without fines, prison time, or other penalties.
“This is an extraordinary result for Sandra,” Staver said, “and the State of California deserves to walk away virtually empty handed.”