National Roundup

Wyoming
A woman who burned state’s only full-service abortion clinic is ordered to pay $298,000
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A judge has ordered a woman who set fire to Wyoming’s only full-service abortion clinic to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution, the full amount sought by prosecutors.

Lorna Green is serving five years in prison for burning Wellspring Health Access weeks before the clinic was set to open in Casper in 2022. The fire gutted the building while it was being renovated for the new clinic and delayed its opening by almost a year.

After opening this past April, Wellspring is now the only abortion clinic in Wyoming. A clinic in Jackson that provided pill abortions closed Dec. 15 due to rising costs.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson ordered Green, 22, to pay about $298,000 in restitution including $240,000 to Nationwide General Insurance Company, the clinic’s insurer.

Green must also pay $33,500 to the building’s owner, Christine Lichtenfels, and $24,500 to Julie Burkhart, founder and president of Wellspring Health Access. Burkhart expressed satisfaction with the restitution.

“Not only did we have the emotional struggle and that trauma from the arson but also it was quite challenging for us financially. So I’m glad this is the final piece and it has been put to rest,” Burkhart said Wednesday.

The restitution was identical to the amounts sought by prosecutors and unopposed by Green’s attorney, Ryan Semerad, who in an emailed statement said Wednesday that Green “looks forward to a productive and peaceful life after her term of incarceration.”

Green has expressed remorse for the crime, which she said was driven by anxiety and nightmares about the planned clinic. The Casper College mechanical engineering student had shown no sign of anti-abortion views on social media but told investigators she opposed abortion.

She admitted driving from Laramie to Casper, breaking into the clinic through a door and lighting gasoline she poured in trays and splashed on the floor. After months of little progress, investigators increased the reward to $15,000 and got tips leading to Green’s arrest in March.

Green pleaded guilty in June to arson and in September received the minimum prison sentence. She had faced up to 20 years in prison.

The arson and eventual opening of the clinic happened as new laws in Wyoming seek to ban abortion in nearly all cases. The laws, including the nation’s first explicit ban on abortion pills, have been put on hold by a judge amid a lawsuit filed by four women and two nonprofits including Wellspring Health Access.

After hearing arguments in the lawsuit Dec. 14, Wyoming District Judge Melissa Owens is weighing whether to rule on the laws. Her decision would likely be appealed, putting Wyoming’s abortion laws before the state Supreme Court.

New York
1st Amendment claim struck down in Project Veritas case
NEW YORK (AP) — Criminal prosecutors may soon get to see over 900 documents pertaining to the alleged theft of a diary belonging to President Joe Biden’s daughter after a judge rejected the conservative group Project Veritas’ First Amendment claim.

Attorney Jeffrey Lichtman said on behalf of the nonprofit Monday that attorneys are considering appealing last Thursday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan. In the written decision, the judge said the documents can be given to investigators by Jan. 5.
The documents were produced from raids that were authorized in November 2021. Electronic devices were also seized from the residences of three members of Project Veritas, including two mobile phones from the home of James O’Keefe, the group’s since-fired founder.
Project Veritas, founded in 2010, identifies itself as a news organization. It is best known for conducting hidden camera stings that have embarrassed news outlets, labor organizations and Democratic politicians.

In written arguments, lawyers for Project Veritas and O’Keefe said the government’s investigation “seems undertaken not to vindicate any real interests of justice, but rather to stifle the press from investigating the President’s family.”

“It is impossible to imagine the government investigating an abandoned diary (or perhaps the other belongings left behind with it), had the diary not been written by someone with the last name ‘Biden,’” they added.

The judge rejected the First Amendment arguments, saying in the ruling that they were “inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent.” She also noted that Project Veritas could not claim it was protecting the identity of a confidential source from public disclosure after two individuals publicly pleaded guilty in the case.

She was referencing the August 2022 guilty pleas of Aimee Harris and Robert Kurlander to conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property. Both await sentencing.

The pleas came two years after Harris and Kurlander — two Florida residents who are not employed by Project Veritas — discovered that Ashley Biden, the president’s daughter, had stored items including a diary at a friend’s Delray Beach, Florida, house.

They said they initially hoped to sell some of the stolen property to then-President Donald Trump’s campaign, but a representative turned them down and told them to take the material to the FBI, prosecutors say.

Eventually, Project Veritas paid the pair $20,000 apiece to deliver the diary containing “highly personal entries,” a digital storage card with private family photos, tax documents, clothes and luggage to New York, prosecutors said.

Project Veritas was not charged with any crime. The group has said its activities were newsgathering and were ethical and legal.

Two weeks ago, Hannah Giles, chief executive of Project Veritas, quit her job, saying in a social media post she had “stepped into an unsalvageable mess — one wrought with strong evidence of past illegality and post financial improprieties.” She said she’d reported what she found to “appropriate law enforcement agencies.”

Lichtman said in an email on behalf of Project Veritas and the people whose residences were raided: “As for the continued investigation, the government isn’t seeking any prison time for either defendant who claims to have stolen the Ashley Biden diary, which speaks volumes in our minds.”