Posted on 02/03/2016 7:15:41 PM PST by Morgana
A California woman charged last week for her role in the production of undercover videos at a Houston Planned Parenthood clinic will be offered probation, a Harris County prosecutor said in court.
Sandra Susan Merritt, of San Jose, Calif., appeared in court Wednesday morning on charges of tampering with a governmental record, a second-degree felony which carried a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
A grand jury convened to investigate whether a Houston Planned Parenthood clinic had sold the organs of aborted fetuses last week cleared the clinic and instead indicted the undercover videographers behind the allegations.
The Harris County grand jury also indicted David Daleiden, of California, on charges of tampering with a governmental record, a second-degree felony with a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison. It charged Daleiden, the leader of the videographers, with the same misdemeanor he had alleged â the purchase or sale of human organs, presumably because he had offered to buy in an attempt to provoke Planned Parenthood employees into saying they would sell.
On Wednesday, Merritt made her bail, was processed by the Harris County Sheriff's Office and turned herself in to state District Judge Brock Thomas. Dressed in her regular clothes, she appeared with a team of defense attorneys. She was also accompanied to and from the court by a handful of sheriff's deputies because of the intense media scrutiny the case has generated, according to one official.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
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If they made them themselves they didnt tamper with any official govt records.
Don’t plead! They did nothing wrong. They should sue for malicious prosecution.
Bizaro world bump for later...
A government that would trump up this kind of charge is in desperation mode. It won't be long before before so called "troublemakers" will mysteriously disappear.
This country gets more Fascist with each passing day.
I would also think that any journalist wo has ever used fake credentials is now fair game for any grand jury to indict.
Oh yeaahhhhh,,, discovery. They are terrified of discovery and of open trial. On live TV no less. And to charge her with the videos, you have to show them in court,,,in full.
Offer the so called "perps" a deal and hope they take it.
The answer should be: "Nope. I want my day in court, as I'm entitled to."
And I want a change of venue, nowhere near Houston, as the DAs office has a severe conflict of interest, being on the PP payroll.
I want a jury of my peers to decide.
In a public, televised trial.
Roll tape #1...
Agreed. Force ‘em to go to trial.
Lavoy Finnicum, this, bake the lesbian wedding cake...
The soetoro regime is really pushing for a confrontation.
The DA has no case and this makes her look magnanimous rather than abusing the powers of her office.
There never was a vote on charging Planned Parenthood, how can she block a second grand jury investigation? They did not decide to not charge PP, it never got to that point.
Also by taking it out of the courts, there is no discovery of Planned Parenthood's operation (or their influence on the DA's office).
Sure. College kids go to prison for 20 years all the time for using fake IDs to get in bars and go to concerts.
Landscaping crews go to prison all the time for 20 years for obtaining false IDs.
NOT
Others are nervous about this precedent as well. Basically the DA is attempting to outlaw undercover journalism.
I’d heard it said that the DA’s office didn’t use the videotapes in the case because they were an illegal violation of privacy. No charges were actually investigated against PP, certainly they were not voted on by the grand jury, and the DA’s office shared details of the investigation with PP’s lawyer by his own admission (in quotes that came out as the videomakers were being charged with crimes). It is illegal to share details of a grand jury investigation with anyone (including the defendants).
A whole lot of rotten stink in this case.
If the videomakers illegally obtained the videotapes by violation of privacy, why weren’t they charged with that? If the videotapes were not illegally obtained, why were they excluded from the investigation?
The DA claims to be a pro-life Republican (with an unpaid Planned Parenthood director working in her office).
Wendy Davis ran as a Republican in the Dallas area once upon a time too.
They want Sandra Merritt to accept the plea deal so that she can be made into a prosecution witness against David Daleiden, who is the one they really want to fry.
There will NOT BE any discovery allowed against PP.
PP's baby-parts activities will be ruled irrelevant to the case.
There is a Judge who will have the final say in the matter, and it will not be to the liking of Planned “Parenthood”.
If they’re already offering a plea deal two weeks after the indictment, they obviously haven’t got a leg to stand on. I’ll bet the case is dropped within a month.
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