HOUSTON — A grand jury’s decision to indict two anti-abortion activists who made undercover videos about Planned Parenthood might be less about sending someone to jail than about expressing disapproval for how the pair conducted their investigation, legal experts said Tuesday.
David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt are accused of using fake driver’s licenses to infiltrate the nation’s largest abortion provider in order to make videos that accused Planned Parenthood of illegally selling fetal tissue to researchers for profit.
Both activists are charged with tampering with a governmental record, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Daleiden was also indicted on a misdemeanor count related to purchasing human organs.
Daleiden’s attorney, Murphy Klasing, said the activists, who live in California, plan to come to Houston’s Harris County Jail, where they will be processed and allowed to post bond. Klasing said he did not know when that will happen.
Daleiden plans to plead not guilty to the charges, Klasing said.
Legal experts say the two are not likely to see any prison time.
“It’s really citizens scolding what they thought was a political investigation. Look at what they indicted them on,” said Ekow N. Yankah, a law professor at Cardozo School of Law in New York. “They indicted them on a misdemeanor of falsifying a government document, for presenting the fake ID to get in for the story.”
The video footage showed the two posing as representatives of a company called BioMax, which purportedly procured fetal tissue for research.
