Two federal lawsuits have been filed against a pair of abortion-rights activists accused of being part of a shadowy group called Jane’s Revenge, vandalizing Florida pregnancy crisis centers and intimidating medical staffs.
State Attorney General Ashley Moody filed a lawsuit March 29 in the Middle District of Florida accusing defendants Caleb Hunter Freestone and Amber Marie Smith-Stewart of taking part in at least three attacks on pregnancy crisis centers in Florida. The legal complaint seeks damages and fines against each defendant totaling $170,000.
Abortion-rights extremists have been taking part in a nationwide campaign of intimidation against such pregnancy centers in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, according to the lawsuit.
A parallel lawsuit was filed the same day by the nonprofit First Liberty Institute on behalf of the Heartbeat of Miami Inc. against Freestone and Smith-Stewart, who are accused of seeking to cause injury and to intimidate and interfere with access to the pregnancy center.
Moody’s lawsuit accuses the two defendants of being part of Antifa and Jane’s Revenge, but the First Liberty legal action does not mention Antifa.
The lawsuits contend the plaintiffs’ rights under the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) were violated. The First Liberty lawsuit argues the defendants vandalized the religious clinic with spray-painted threats, hacked into its computer system and shouted obscenities at staff, volunteers and supporters.
In January, a federal grand jury issued a criminal indictment against the pair.
“This is one of the first times (the FACE Act has) been applied to groups like Jane’s Revenge, who have picked up bricks and cans of spray paint to express their political disagreements,” Jeremy Dys, First Liberty’s senior counsel, told the Florida Record.
The spray-painted threats to clinics included one that said, “If abortion’s not safe, then neither are you.”
An attorney representing Freestone declined comment.
Dys said Moody’s actions to protect the crisis pregnancy centers have been welcomed by the plaintiffs.
“I’m awfully glad that Attorney General Moody has really led the way on this kind of thing to protect not only our clients but all those pregnancy crisis centers in Florida and, by extension, those across the country that have been so needlessly attacked over the past year.”