California prosecutors on Monday agreed to drop all charges against anti-abortion activists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, concluding years of litigation stemming from their undercover videos targeting Planned Parenthood.
The Center for Medical Progress, led by Daleiden, announced that both activists reached a plea agreement with Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office. Under this agreement, they will enter a “no contest” plea, resulting in no jail time, fines, admission of wrongdoing, or probation, according to a press release from CMP.
The plea will be recorded as a misdemeanor and converted within six to 12 months to a “not guilty” plea, ultimately leading to dismissal and expungement. It concludes a long-standing legal fight that was waged in part by several top state prosecutors, including Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra before they worked in the Biden administration.
The controversy began in 2015 when CMP released a series of undercover videos showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing fetal tissue procurement, claiming those discussions surrounded negotiations to sell the body parts of unborn children to research labs. Planned Parenthood has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
Daleiden hailed the settlement as a “huge victory” for his investigative work and emphasized the importance of exposing practices within Planned Parenthood.
“After enduring 9 years of weaponized political prosecution, putting an end to the lawfare launched by Kamala Harris is a huge victory for my investigative reporting and for the public’s right to know the truth about Planned Parenthood’s sale of aborted baby body parts,” Daleiden said, adding he plans to spend his time working to protect babies from the “criminal abortion-industrial complex.”
The legal battles intensified when then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris (D), who recently lost her presidential bid against Republican President Donald Trump, initiated an investigation into Daleiden and Merritt in 2016. This led to a raid on Daleiden’s home, where videos and documents were seized. Daleiden accused Harris of “weaponization” of her office due to her political alignment with Planned Parenthood.
After Harris was sworn in as senator in 2017, Attorney General Becerra continued her prosecution and eventually levied 15 felony charges against the activists for invasion of privacy and conspiracy. Becerra was the director of the Department of Health and Human Services under the Biden-Harris administration.
In 2019, a California state judge ruled that only nine of the 15 charges could be brought during a trial, citing that the conversations recorded by Daleiden and Merritt did not meet the legal threshold for confidentiality under California law. The criminal case was marred with delays and never went to trial.
However, a separate civil case ultimately saw a resolution and even a rejection of a final review by the Supreme Court. A federal jury in 2019 awarded Planned Parenthood over $2 million in damages, concluding that Daleiden and his associates had breached confidentiality agreements and committed fraud by misrepresenting themselves to gain access to private meetings and facilities. The pair then appealed to the 9th Circuit, which ultimately upheld the jury’s findings.
“Invoking journalism and the First Amendment does not shield individuals from liability for violations of laws applicable to all members of society,” wrote Circuit Judge Ronald Gould in the appellate court’s opinion in the civil case.
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The resolution of the criminal case allows Daleiden and Merritt to focus on their advocacy efforts.
“Taking the San Francisco case off the board allows me to focus fully on CMP’s mission to report on the injustices of taxpayer-funded experiments on aborted babies and continue to expand our groundbreaking investigative reporting,” Daleiden said.
