DOJ Indicts 2 More Abortion Activists for Targeting Florida Pregnancy Centers

DOJ Indicts 2 More Abortion Activists for Targeting Florida Pregnancy Centers
Winter Haven Police Department
Katherine Hamilton

The Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted two more abortion activists on Wednesday for allegedly targeting several pro-life pregnancy resource centers in Florida.

A federal grand jury in the Middle District of Florida returned a superseding indictment, accusing Gabriella Oropesa and Annarella Rivera, in addition to Caleb Freestone and Amber Smith-Stewart, of engaging in a “conspiracy to prevent employees of reproductive health services facilities from providing those services.” The DOJ indicted Freestone, 27, and Amber Smith Stewart, 23, in January 2023. 

“As part of the conspiracy, the defendants allegedly targeted pregnancy resource facilities and vandalized those facilities with spray-painted threats. Some of the co-conspirators are alleged to have spray painted threats, including ‘If abortions aren’t safe than niether [sic] are you,’ ‘YOUR TIME IS UP!!,’ ‘WE’RE COMING for U,’ and ‘We are everywhere,’ on a reproductive health services facility in Winter Haven, Florida,” according to the DOJ. “Facilities in Hollywood, Florida, and Hialeah, Florida, were also allegedly targeted.”

The Winter Haven facility in Polk County was vandalized in June after the Supreme Court overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The Ledger reported at the time that the attack was claimed by “Jane’s Revenge,” a pro-abortion extremist group that has claimed attacks against pro-life pregnancy centers and churches across the country. Freestone and Amber Smith Stewart have been linked to Antifa. 

The superseding indictment alleges that Rivera, along with Freestone and Smith-Stewart, violated the FACE Act “by using threats of force to intimidate” the pro-life pregnancy center in Winter Haven, according to the DOJ. The indictment also alleges that Rivera, along with Freestone and Smith-Stewart, violated that FACE Act by intentionally damaging and destroying the facility’s property because the facility provides “reproductive health services.”

Rivera, Freestone, and Smith-Stewart each face up to a maximum of 12 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and fines of up to $350,000 if convicted. Oropesa faces up to a maximum of ten years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody announced a lawsuit against Freestone and Smith-Stewart this week, stating that “Antifa and Jane’s Revenge are criminal organizations and must answer for their crimes in Florida.”

“I am taking action to hold their members accountable for attempting to intimidate and threaten law-abiding citizens in our state,” Moody said in a statement. 

Moody’s lawsuit accuses Freestone and Smith-Stewart of violated the FACE Act, which subjects civil and criminal penalties to any person who “by force or threat of force … intentionally … intimidates or interferes with or attempts to…intimidate or interfere with any person because that person is or has been … providing reproductive health services.”

The First Liberty Institute also filed a suit for damages on behalf of one of the clinics that were allegedly targeted. 

After the Dobbs decision was leaked but before Roe was overturned, Jane’s Revenge penned an open letter to pro-life centers across the country threatening acts of domestic terrorism. In the letter, the radical group took ownership for acts of violence and vandalism at pregnancy centers throughout the country and promised to escalate their tactics if pro-lifers continue operations as usual. The group declared:

Your 30 days expired yesterday. We offered an honorable way out. You could’ve walked away. Now the leash is off. And we will make it as hard as possible for your campaign of oppression to continue. We have demonstrated in the past month how easy and fun it is to attack. We are versatile, we are mercurial, and we answer to no one but ourselves.

Promising to take “increasingly drastic measures” without giving any details, the group said it would attack these centers both overtly and covertly until insurance companies and financial backers “realize you are a bad investment.”

Since the leak of the Dobbs draft decision in May of 2022, at least 83 pro-life pregnancy centers and 144 Catholic churches have been attacked, vandalized, or firebombed, according to an attack tracker kept by CatholicVote. During a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security Committee in November of 2022, FBI Director Christopher Wray admitted that approximately 70 percent of abortion-related threats of violence in the United States since the Dobbs decision have been against pro-life groups.

Related: Surveillance Footage: Arsonists Toss Molotov Cocktails at Pro-Life Clinic

FBI Buffalo via Storyful

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