Monday, October 21

Planned Parenthood Calls David Daleiden to the Stand

Planned Parenthood's attorneys called David Daleiden in an effort to get him to testify against himself as part of an attempt to prove that by using covert methods to investigate Planned Parenthood's sale of aborted baby parts, Mr. Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress violated the RICO Act, the federal anti-racketeering law.  For some insights from Daleiden's attorney, Peter Breen of the Thomas More Society, watch his video commentary at the end of court Monday.  More on Daleiden's testimony below.

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Today, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) brought in two witnesses, both women who have worked as abortionists, to testify briefly on behalf of Planned Parenthood. After them, however, the plaintiff’s lawyers called defendant David Daleiden to the stand, and the bulk of the day was spent in plaintiff’s first examination of Mr. Daleiden.

First up for plaintiffs was Jennifer Castle, PPFA’s Director of Clinical Services Delivery. She began as a nurse-practitioner with Planned Parenthood of Northern New England in 2001, and in 2015 took on her current directorship with the national federation.

Did you know that there is an annual National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers? (It is March 10.) For one such celebration, Ms. Castle authored the article “ Abortion Providers are Heroes.” In it she says that she is “proud to...have worked as an abortion provider for the past 18 years,” and she has “drawn on both my Catholic past and current Buddhist practices, and their shared belief in the imperative to offer one’s self in service to ease the suffering of others.” Ms. Castle's testimony about her Catholic past failed to mention the Church's teaching that abortion is a grave moral evil and the killing of an unborn child, as outlined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church

Today Ms. Castle testified to how important the major conferences and meetings of PPFA and its associates are to her--for professional exchanges, for community with like-minded practitioners, and as safe spaces for conversations which are kept confidential. The jury saw a brief clip from one of the CMP undercover videos on which David Daleiden speaks with Jennifer Castle at a national conference in 2015. The fact that Daleiden attended this conference in the guise of a bona fide exhibitor is of concern to her, she said. 
 
However, on cross-examination, Ms. Castle admitted she is not a plaintiff in the action, the video in which Ms. Castle is filmed is not one that was ever seen in public before today; and that she came forward as a voluntary witness on behalf of the plaintiff PPFA. She was asked if PPFA had consulted with her before filing this lawsuit. Her answer was, No.
 
The next witness from PPFA was June Gupta, who has been PPFA’s Director of Medical Standards since 2015. She also is on videotape in conversation with David Daleiden, at a medical directors’ conference in 2015. The video in which she appears is one of those that CMP released in its Human Capital Project investigation; and today the jury saw a brief clip from this film. Ms. Gupta’s examination and cross-examination largely concerned whether her conversation with Mr. Daleiden was truly “confidential.” Plaintiff argues that it is, but the defense maintains it was not. The venue of the covert recording was a crowded reception hall, and Daleiden's attorneys extracted testimony about how many other persons, staff, and guests were in the hall and within earshot.
 
The balance of the day consisted of David Daleiden on the stand, being questioned by attorney Rhonda R. Trotter. The pace was slow and the conversation repetitive, with Ms. Trotter presenting a mountain of documents as exhibits and Mr. Daleiden generally answering, “Yes, that’s correct.”  Ms. Trotter was painstakingly marshaling evidence to support plaintiff’s assertion that Mr. Daleiden’s undercover work amounts to fraud and illegal business practice. Mr. Daleiden claims that this work, in which he and his associates took pseudonyms and presented themselves as agents of a nonexistent fetal-tissue-procurement business, in order to investigate whether Planned Parenthood' was illicitly selling aborted baby parts, is legitimate practice in the tradition of investigative journalism. 
 
Planned Parenthood's charges, and the defendants' legal burden—and the jury’s duty as defined for them by the judge—are summed up well by Nicholas Iovino of CourthouseNews.com in his report from October 3, the first day of the trial: 

“What the jury must decide is whether Daleiden and his co-defendants are liable for fraud, breach of contract, unlawful recording of conversations, civil conspiracy and violation of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.”
 
As lead defense attorney Peter Breen, Vice President and Senior Counsel at the Thomas More Society, has written on the Thomas More Society website: “David has been falsely accused of illegally gaining access into abortion industry conferences, breaking confidentiality agreements, and engaging in mail and wire fraud.  The National Abortion Federation (NAF) and Planned Parenthood have both filed federal RICO (racketeering) lawsuits against David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress in an attempt to silence free speech on the abortion industry’s sale of fetal body parts.”
 
Monday's session ended at 1:00 pm with Daleiden still on the stand and under examination by Ms. Trotter. Court opens again at 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday.  
More here tomorrow. 

Meanwhile, you can read about how RICO was employed versus pro-life people in the notorious Scheidler case, which the Thomas More Society lawyers fought to a successful conclusion (after 28 years of litigation) in 2014. The story is here:  https://www.thomasmoresociety.org/about/scheidler/   

                              ---  by J. A. Gray,  correspondent