The San Francisco Superior Court has dropped 14 of the 15 felony charges levelled against the Centre for Medical Progress (CMP) and two of its undercover investigators.
David Daleiden, the founder of CMP, and Sandra Merritt faced charges for recording Planned Parenthood – America’s largest abortion provider – executives without their consent. The charges were dropped on the grounds of being “legally insufficient,” according to Life Site News.
Posing as employees from a bio-research company, Daleiden and Merritt covertly filmed Planned Parenthood executives discussing foetal harvesting techniques. The recordings also revealed Planned Parenthood’s dealings in illegal foetal-tissue trafficking.
Planned Parenthood sued Daleiden and his colleagues for creating the videos but did not sue for defamation of character, according to court documents.
One charge out of the fifteen remains, targeting Merritt alone for conspiring to invade privacy.
The charges can be brought up again if a motion to do so occurs before July 17, according to Reuters news service.
Daleiden and Merrit experienced a similar situation in 2016 when similar charges were dropped in Houston. Daleiden doesn’t expect this repeated litigation to hold him back.
“I’m all in,” Daleiden said in an interview with the Family Research Council. “We have more videos that have yet to be released and there are more battles that have yet to be fought.”
