New documents call into question two key components of the FBI’s charges against Mark Houck, the pro-life father of seven who was arrested by federal agents Sept. 23 for allegedly shoving a Planned Parenthood clinic escort.
The FBI charged Houck with two counts of assaulting a reproductive health care clinic escort in violation of the FACE Act, which makes it a federal crime to interfere with someone “because that person is a provider of reproductive health care.” Houck’s arrest by numerous federal agents made national headlines, but newly unearthed documents undermine some of the FBI’s charges against him.
Houck was praying near an abortion clinic when Bruce Love, who claims to be a longtime clinic escort, approached him and began behaving “extremely aggressively” and harassing Houck’s then-12-year-old son, his attorney, Peter Breen, told the Daily Caller News Foundation; Love was not escorting any patients at the time of the altercation, according to Breen.
Photos show the FBI agents who arrested pro-life advocate Mark Houck in his house in front of his screaming children.
Houck was hauled off by these agents and taken to court days later for a pushing incident the local court dropped months before. https://t.co/vOAnNs3jC9
— Diana Glebova (@DianaGlebova) October 4, 2022
Love only mentioned being shoved once in a prior criminal complaint about the incident, according to a copy of his private criminal complaint first obtained by the Federalist, but Houck’s federal indictment is for two instances of assault. The fact that Love only later mentioned a second shoving undermines the federal government’s decision to charge Houck with two counts of assault, according to Breen.
“Apparently Mr. Love is now claiming a second instance where he says he was knocked to the ground,” Breen said. “That is false. We look forward to some sort of evidence of that alleged other instance because if a crime had actually taken place we assume that Mr. Love would have put it in his private criminal complaint he brought to the Pennsylvania state courts.”
via joemiller