On Tuesday, the Department of Justice announced charges for two people over the vandalization of pregnancy centers in Florida. A f...
On Tuesday, the Department of Justice announced charges for two people over the vandalization of pregnancy centers in Florida.
A federal grand jury indicted the two residents of Florida for the act of spray-painting threatening phrases on the resource centers that assist men and women who may be facing unplanned pregnancies.
The charge alleges that the two defendants, Caleb Freestone and Amber Smith-Stewart, took part in a conspiracy to prohibit the pregnancy center workers from offering help to men and women at the centers, the Department of Justice explained in a release on Tuesday. Included in the conspiracy, the department noted that the indictment stated the two individuals went after pregnancy centers and vandalized them with threatening messages in spray paint.
The defendants, along with others, allegedly spray-painted aggressive statements, such as, “If abortions aren’t safe than niether [sic] are you,” “WE’RE COMING for U,” “YOUR TIME IS UP!!” and “We are everywhere.”
The messages were written on a center in Winter Haven, Florida, and they allegedly went after other pregnancy centers that are located in Hollywood, Florida, and Hialeah, Florida.
Freestone and Smith-Stewart are accused of breaking the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) for two reasons — why they went after the workers and why they caused harm to the site.
The law does not allow individuals to keep people from “obtaining or providing reproductive health services” or go after someone because they have been doing so. They also cannot “intentionally [damage] or [destroy] the property of a facility … because such facility provides reproductive health services…”
They each could spend up to 12 years in jail, with three years of supervised release and penalties that could reach up to $350,000.
One of the pregnancy centers attacked is operated by the Archdiocese of Miami.
“I applaud our police and justice system for taking very seriously these instances of domestic terrorism against pro-life facilities. Hate crimes of this sort should not be tolerated,” Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski told the National Catholic Register through a spokesperson on Wednesday.
A Facebook page that seemed to belong to Smith-Stewart reportedly reveals that she is connected with Antifa, according to National Review. The cover photo for the account is Antifa’s flag and the profile picture included an Antifa sticker with the phrase, “Fight all governments there’s no authority but yourself,” and an additional sticker that said, “make racists afraid again.” Smith-Stewart also posted a photo on Facebook of someone burning an American flag in August of 2021.
Since May of 2022, there have been almost 60 attacks on pro-life pregnancy facilities across the country, according to Catholic News Agency‘s data. As of October of last year, Fox News reported that more than 100 pro-life groups, pregnancy centers, and churches had withstood attacks.
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