Mark Crosby arrived in court last week to attend the sentencing of the man who punched and kicked him in the head outside of a Baltimore Planned Parenthood prepared for his attacker to get a light sentence.
Before the sentencing began, Crosby, 75, sat outside the courtroom holding up photos of his bloodied face as his assailant, 28-year-old Patrick Brice, paced nervously down the hall. Crosby also carried with him the blood stained shirt he was wearing when he was attacked and a list of peaceful pro-life protesters who were jailed during the Biden administration.
Brice was convicted earlier this year of second-degree assault and reckless endangerment charges for attacking Crosby and then 84-year-old Dick Schaefer as they stood outside a downtown Baltimore Planned Parenthood facility urging women not to get abortions. Surveillance footage shows Brice getting into an argument with Schaefer before tackling him to the ground and turning around and attacking Crosby.
Crosby asked people standing outside of the courtroom, including reporters and supporters, if what happened to him looked like a misdemeanor.
In the end, his prediction that Brice would get a light penalty came true. Baltimore City Circuit Judge Yvette Bryant sentenced him to just one year of home detention with work and other allowances, and three years of probation.
“What about my rights and my well-being?” Crosby shouted as Bryant left the courtroom.
Crosby later told The Daily Wire that he believed the light sentencing was because of the fact that Baltimore is a “criminal-friendly” city and run by pro-abortion officials. Crosby was represented by the Thomas More Society, which decried the sentencing.
“This was not a minor altercation between two parties with differing views on abortion. It was a vicious, targeted assault on two senior citizens whose only ‘offense’ was praying for expectant mothers and offering life-affirming alternatives to abortion,” Thomas More Society President Tom Brejcha said.
“One of the victims was knocked unconscious. The other suffered broken facial bones and a lifelong eye impairment. This was an act of cowardice and cruelty, and sheer mayhem. This crime deserves far more serious consequences than a ‘get out of jail free’ card and a one-year home detention that amounts to nothing more than a slap on the wrist.”
Brice’s sentancing contrasted sharply with those of the dozens of peaceful pro-life protesters who were prosecuted by the Biden administration. Many of those defendants were sentenced to years long prison sentences for violating the Freedom to Access Clinic Entrances Act (FACE).
The law, signed by President Bill Clinton to supposedly guarantee access to both abortion facilities and crisis pregnancy centers, has been used disproportionately against pro-lifers. The Biden administration paired FACE charges with a Reconstruction-era conspiracy against rights law that allows for prison sentences of over 10 years.
Biden’s Justice Department successfully prosecuted these cases across the country — from Michigan to Tennessee to Washington, D.C. — and got lengthy prison sentences for multiple defendants.
One woman, Lauren Handy, was sentenced to 57 months in prison for her role in an October 20 sit-in at the notorious D.C.-based Washington Surgi-Clinic late-term abortion facility. Handy helped lead a protest inside the facility that involved the group singing, praying, locking arms in front of the facility’s staff entrance, and attaching themselves with ropes and chains to block doors inside the building.
They were convicted of FACE Act charges and conspiracy against rights.
Many of Handy’s co-defendants also received lengthy prison sentences including John Hinshaw (21 months in prison), William Goodman (27 months), Jonathan Darnell (34 months), Herb Geraghty (27 months), Jean Marshall (24 months), Joan Bell (27 months in prison), Paula Paulette Harlow (24 months), and Heather Idoni (24 months).
Biden’s Department of Justice claimed that the protest “resulted in injury to a clinic nurse.” But the Thomas More Society, which defended Handy, argued differently.
“The only basis for a finding of the use of force was when an overzealous clinic worker rushed at the pro-life advocates and tried to forcibly remove them from the clinic waiting room, resulting in her twisting an ankle,” the legal group said. “There was no allegation that Ms. Handy or her co-defendants intended to harm anyone. In fact, Ms. Handy and her co-defendants were united in their commitment to non-violence.”
In another prosecution brought by the Biden administration, six pro-lifers were convicted in Tennessee of the FACE Act and conspiracy against rights. Their protest involved the demonstrators signing, praying, and sitting in front of doors in a hallway outside of an abortion facility in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee.
Two of those defendants, including 64-year-old Calvin Zastrow and 75-year-old Chet Gallagher, were sentenced to prison. Heather Idoni, one of their codefendants, was also sentenced to serve a prison sentence to run concurrently with her sentence from D.C.
Another FACE Act defendant was Bevelyn Williams, who was sentenced in New York to 44 months in prison.
This all changed after Trump took office and he issued pardons for the FACE Act defendants, meaning that Handy and the other imprisoned pro-lifers were freed. The Justice Department also issued a directive to only enforce the FACE Act in cases of extreme violence.
Crosby believes that the Trump administration should get involved in his case and look at prosecuting what happened to him and Schaefer as a hate crime as he believes that he was targeted for his religious and political beliefs.
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