Conservative Anti-Choice Operatives Behind Planned Parenthood Attack Videos Charged with 15 Felonies

The conservative anti-abortion operatives behind a string of videos that presented gravely false information about Planned Parenthood, a U.S. pro-choice health care provider, have been charged with 15 counts of felonies for those videos.

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David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt were charged Tuesday with the felonies, one for each of the 14 people they filmed without consent, as well as one for criminal conspiracy to invade privacy, according to the Associated Press. Their videos were so highly edited that they appeared to show employees selling fetal tissue for profit.

"As we have said from the beginning, and as more than a dozen different state investigations have made clear: Planned Parenthood has done nothing wrong, and the only people who broke the law are those behind the fraudulent tapes," Mary Alice Carter, interim vice president of communications for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in an emailed statement to Mic.

"The California attorney general filing criminal charges sends a clear message that you cannot target women and you cannot target health care providers without consequences," she added. "We look forward to justice being served."

Daleiden responded to the charges by telling AP that the charges were "bogus" and that "the public knows the real criminals are Planned Parenthood and their business partners."

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This isn’t the first time the two have been charged for their videos, which they filmed by posing as representatives of a company called Biomax and smuggling cameras inside Planned Parenthood clinics. In January 2016, a grand jury investigated the accusations levied in the videos, but indicted Daleiden and Merritt for felony falsification of government documents. However, a Texas judge eventually dropped that charge.

The videos have played an instrumental role in the uptick in right-wing violence the clinics have faced.

Most notably, in November 2015, Robert Dear opened fire at one such clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, killing three people because he believed the organization was selling "baby parts."