California Prosecutors Reach Plea Deal With Pro-Life Advocates in Secret Recording Case

The defendants agreed to refrain from making any additional recordings that violate California laws.

Planned Parenthood signage is displayed outside of a health care clinic in Los Angeles on May 16, 2023. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images

California prosecutors said on Jan. 28 that they have reached a plea deal with pro-life advocates Sandra Merritt and David Daleiden over their alleged roles in secretly videotaping conversations with individuals at conferences and other events attended by Planned Parenthood officials.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the defendants pleaded “no contest to, and were found guilty of, one felony count of California Penal Code Section 632(a) (unlawful recording of confidential communication).”

The original 15-count criminal complaint against the pair was filed in March 2017 by Attorney General Xavier Becerra. It alleged that the defendants posed as representatives of a biomedical research company to gain access to the events and electronically record confidential conversations without consent.

The pair, who described themselves as citizen journalists, released recordings that they said showed Planned Parenthood officials discussing prices for fetal tissue. Planned Parenthood denied any wrongdoing.

The terms of the plea agreement state that the pair are “to have no contact with, stay away from, and not name the victims—whether in public, their private residences, over social media, or at their work locations.”

The defendants also agreed to refrain from making any additional recordings that violate California law.

“We will not hesitate to continue taking action against those who threaten access to abortion care—whether by recording confidential conversations or other means,” Bonta said.

Attorneys from Liberty Counsel, a conservative nonprofit law firm that has represented Merritt pro bono throughout her eight-year prosecution, said in a Jan. 27 statement that before this case, “the State of California had never criminally prosecuted undercover journalists for surreptitious recordings made in the public interest.”

Liberty Counsel said that after a one-year probationary period, the single charge will be reduced to a misdemeanor at sentencing and then expunged from the record. The pair will serve no prison time, will not pay fines, and will face no other penalties.

“The deal is essentially a complete victory for Merritt,” Liberty Counsel said.

In a statement posted on his website, The Center for Medical Progress (CMP), Daleiden said, “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.”

Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in the United States.

According to the organization’s 2022–23 Annual Report, its 600 centers across the nation performed 392,715 abortions during that period.

The Epoch Times reached out to Planned Parenthood for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.