The PR below points out that these two men are the first to be sentenced in New York for violating the federal FACE law. They are not the first to be tried in New York under that political crime law. The late Bishop George Lynch, and Brother (now Fr.) Fidelis Moscinki, were arrested in the early 1990's and charged under FACE. They had sat in the entrance driveway of the now-closed Dobbs Ferry abortion chamber. However the federal judge found them not guilty, saying they were following their consciences!
We ask you to pray for all four of the prisoners of conscience mentioned below.
Press Release from the Order of Mercy at Gethsemane
Non-violent Rescuers the first sentenced in New York under 1994 Federal
Provision on June 10
For the first time since its inception federal prosecutors invoked the
FACE regulation illegally passed by Congress in 1994 to secure the
conviction of two non-violent protesters on April 27 before Judge
Robert Sweet. The two are to be sentenced by Judge Sweet this Thursday,
June 10, at 4.30pm at 500 Pearl Street in Foley Square.
On December 12, 2009 Tony Puckett and Rick Dugan sat in front of the
Planned Parenthood Extermination Camp on Bleecker Street in Manhattan
for the third rescue attempt made there last year, in order to dissuade
mothers from turning their children over to the abortionists inside.
As the morning proceeded, the men were eventually arrested by the New
York City police department, but federal agents took charge of the case
and brought the two to trial and conviction.
Affiliated with the Order of Mercy at Gethsemane, which denies the
legitimacy of courts to protect mass murder, both Puckett and Dugan
refused to defend themselves in court. Puckett dismissed the
proceedings as an obvious “farce,” whereas Dugan insisted on the
court’s obligation to “dismiss the case” since Planned Parenthood is
“there to kill babies and we were stopping that,” which action is not
illegal according to international law as recognized at the Nuremberg
trials after World War II.
The rescuers are subject to six month imprisonment and fines. If
imprisoned, they will begin to absorb some small measure of the
injustice inflicted on the unborn, another central precept of the
Gethsemane order. There are also two women affiliates, Mary Wagner and
Linda Gibbons, who are in jail in Canada for four rescues in Toronto in
2009 and during Holy Week this year.
“While the four are in jail, no child will die without a born ally
willing to suffer injustice along with them,” a spokesman for the
Gethsemane Order observed. “We thus commend them, and those for whom
they stand, to the prayers of those who pray for justice, and to those
who work for it.”
Comments