Dumb Activist Behind Anti-Planned Parenthood Videos Charged with 15 Felonies

The video, Daleiden said, was the result of a three-year-long investigation. Over the following few months, he continued to release similar footage and make similarly wild allegations against Planned Parenthood. Several investigations into his claims revealed that the footage was deceptively edited and that the reproductive health organization had engaged in no wrongdoing, but it didn't matter to the anti-abortion zealots who had rallied around his baseless accusations: "Planned Parenthood sells baby parts" became an ubiquitous anti-choice slogan, conservative politicians eagerly parroted Daleiden's accusations, and, during the primaries, every Republican candidate swore to defund the organization. (During one particularly memorable debate, Carly Fiorina recited a deranged, completely invented account of a fetus kicking its legs in agony while an unnamed nefarious doctor plotted to "harvest its brain.")

Ironically, in obsessively trying to catch Planned Parenthood engaging in criminal activity, Daleiden and his co-conspirators may have committed several serious crimes themselves: As we've previously reported, he and a woman named Sandra Merritt allegedly created a fake bioreasearch organization and adopted fake identities in order to infiltrate reproductive health groups and secretly record their employees. In California—where Daleiden and Merritt covertly filmed several of their "sting" videos while wearing hidden cameras—it is illegal to record someone without their knowledge or consent.

As it turns out, you can't commit alleged fraud and invasion of privacy with total impunity: Last night, Daleiden was charged with 15 felonies in California. "The right to privacy is a cornerstone of California's Constitution, and a right that is foundational in a free democratic society," said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra in a statement. "We will not tolerate the criminal recording of confidential conversations."

According to a complaint filed by the state, Daleiden created a "phony tissue procurement company" called BioMax "for the sole purpose of gaining access to various conferences hosted by Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Federation (NAF), and others affiliated with women's healthcare services." Daleiden, Merritt, and one other woman, Brianna Allen, also used fake IDs to apply for a vendor booth at the annual NAF conference in San Francisco in 2014. While there, they secretly recorded conversations with eight conference attendees, and, a year later, edited this footage and posted it online.

"Immediately after," the complaint states, "several of the healthcare providers who had been named and identified in the edited videos began receiving personalized death threats."

On May 21, 2015, Daleiden tried to report StemExpress, a California-based biotech company, to the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department for illegally selling fetal tissue. During his meeting with a detective, he admitted that he had recorded conversations with Planned Parenthood employees, but he specifically noted that these recordings had taken place in one-party consent states—meaning states where it is legal to secretly record others—and added that he knew it was illegal to covertly record people in California. (A subsequent police investigation into StemExpress turned up nothing.)

The very next day, according to the complaint, Daleiden and Merritt surreptitiously recorded three StemExpress employees in El Dorado Hills, California. Two months later, he posted footage from this meeting online—prompting death threats against at least one StemExpress employee.

Posting illegally-obtained footage of abortion providers and others who are affiliated with reproductive health is particularly dangerous because of the long history of extreme anti-abortion sentiment in America. At NAF events, for instance, organizers take extreme precaution to protect attendees' privacy, knowing they face a real threat of violence. "It would be one thing if all that happened was that people peacefully protested outside of clinics," NAF president Vicki Saporta told Broadly shortly after the first of Daleiden's videos came out. "But that's not what's happening, and that's not the history of what's happened. In my tenure at NAF, I have gotten two phone calls saying that my members were murdered. Another was stabbed and shot and survived… The threat is real."

Daleiden's outlandish accusations only added to this hostile environment: Reports of threats and harassment against abortion providers increased ninefold in the aftermath of the videos' release, there have been several instances of possible arson at Planned Parenthood locations, and in November of 2015 a gunman shot and killed three people at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs. He later said that he saw himself as "a warrior for the babies."

Reproductive health advocates see the criminal charges as an important signal to anti-abortion extremists. "As we've known all along, David Daleiden and his co-conspirators are the ones who broke the law, not abortion providers," said Saporta in a statement. "In order to launch their smear campaign, Daleiden and Merritt engaged in a long-running illegal conspiracy. They should be held accountable for their actions, which have put abortion providers and others at risk."

"The California Attorney General filing criminal charges sends a clear message that you cannot target women and you cannot target health care providers without consequences," Mary Alice Carter, the interim vice president of communications for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "We look forward to justice being served."

Daleiden, for his part, seems unbothered. In a statement, he called the charges "bogus" and "fake news" and promised to release more videos exposing "Planned Parenthood's criminal body parts enterprise." A few hours later, he posted a video of a Planned Parenthood employee in Arizona discussing abortion procedures in graphic detail—but, notably, not describing any illegal activity. Arizona, luckily for him, is a one-party consent state.