WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors say a D.C. anti-abortion activist should serve more than six years in prison for organizing and leading the invasion of a Foggy Bottom clinic in 2020.
Lauren Handy, 30, and nine co-defendants were indicted on felony charges of conspiracy against rights and violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act for forcing their way into the Washington Surgi-Clinic on F Street under a false name and then using chains, bike locks, furniture and their bodies to prevent patients from entering the facility and police from removing them. One co-defendant, Jay Smith, pleaded guilty to violating the FACE Act and was sentenced to 10 months in prison. The remaining eight – Johnathan Darnel, Herb Geraghty, Joan Andrews Bell, William Goodman, Paulette Harlow, Jean Marshall, John Hinshaw and Heather Idoni – were convicted on both counts in a series of trials in federal court last year.
Handy made international headlines in 2022 when WUSA9 reported she had fetal remains in her Capitol Hill residence. No charges were ever filed in connection with the remains, which police said appeared to have been aborted according to D.C. law, and a judge barred Handy and her co-defendants from entering evidence about them at trial.
Following their convictions last year, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered Handy and most of her co-defendants detained at the D.C. Jail while they awaited sentencing. In sentencing memos filed this month, prosecutors say Kollar-Kotelly should order all of the remaining defendants to serve at least two years in prison. For Handy, the ringleader, prosecutors asked for more than six years behind bars.
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Handy worked at the time as the director of activism for a group called Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising that has been involved in other protests outside clinics in the D.C. area as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. Prosecutors noted her lengthy history of blockades at clinics – including two in Virginia and Michigan that resulted in jail time – and said she joined with Darnel in a scheme to make history by organizing the first “lock-and-block rescue” in 25 years.
“They were the masterminds who chose the clinic, advertised the event, recruited participants, and planned the crime,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sanjay Patel and John Crabb wrote in their sentencing memo.
Prosecutors said Handy committed perjury on the stand when she testified at trial and has “capitalized on her victimization of vulnerable victims.” They also said her history of prior arrests, and conduct after indictment, show she hasn’t been deterred from violating federal laws. Last February, Kollar-Kotelly imposed additional release restrictions on Handy after learning she had planned two additional clinic invasions in Maryland while awaiting trial.
For Handy, prosecutors are seeking a sentence at the high-end of what they say her guidelines range should be: 63-78 months, or 5.25-6.5 years, in prison. For the remaining defendants, prosecutors are seeking prison terms ranging from 27-51 months:
- Lauren Handy: High-end of 63-78 months
- Johnathan Darnel: High-end of 41-51 months
- Joan Andrews Bell: High-end of 33-41 months
- Jean Marshall: High-end of 33-41 months
- Heather Idoni: High-end of 33-41 months
- Herb Geraghty: Mid-range of 33-41 months
- William Goodman: Mid-range of 33-41 months
- Paulette Harlow: Low-end of 33-41 months
- John Hinshaw: Low-end of 27-33 months
Three of the defendants – Bell, Harlow and Marshall – are in their 70s. Bell and Harlow wore bike locks around their necks and, assisted by Marshall, used chains and furniture to create a physical barricade in the clinic’s lobby. Prosecutors said Marshall also pushed a patient back down to the floor after she had collapsed in labor pains outside the clinic. The patient, who testified at the trial under a pseudonym, described in detail how her husband begged the blockaders to let her into the clinic while she lay on the floor in pain.
Many of the defendants have long histories of involvement in the anti-abortion movement, including Marshall and Harlow, who are sisters who said they had participated in numerous clinic protests in the past. Bell, however, stands in a league of her own.
Now 74, Bell is a celebrity in the anti-abortion movement who has been arrested hundreds of times, and served years’ worth of combined time behind bars, for her work with Operation Rescue in the 80s and 90s. She wrote a book, “I Will Never Forget You,” about her time in the anti-abortion movement. Several participants in the blockade, including Idoni, said they were inspired to join Handy’s plans because they knew Bell would be a participant.
“Bell’s involvement in the conspiracy was significant,” prosecutors said. “She is an iconic figure among extreme anti-abortionists, having participated in countless clinic invasions over the prior three decades.”
As of Monday afternoon, five of the defendants had filed sentencing memos of their own. Harlow, who was allowed to stay on release while awaiting sentencing due to medical issues, requested a period of home incarceration. Geraghty and Goodman both requested time-served sentences of approximately nine months. Darnel, a former captain in the U.S. Army who previously deployed to Iraq, asked for 15 months – citing a recent decision in a Jan. 6 case from D.C. Circuit Court Judge Cornelia Pillard about the price of civil disobedience.
“Judge Pillard eloquently stated that ‘the power of civil disobedience’ was the willingness to be punished,” Darnel’s attorney, Christopher M. Davis, wrote. “’Such protesters think, ‘I’m violating the law and I’m ready to take the consequences for it because I’m responding to a higher law,’’ she said. ‘And the higher law, in my view, is more important, even to the point where I’m willing to sacrifice myself.’ But … the sacrifice is that the law does not bend and accommodate the person’s individual moral principle.’ Mr. Darnel understands her message.”
In a sentencing report filed by his attorney Alfred Guillaume, III, Hinshaw, 69, asked for a sentence at or below 21 months.
“He is passionate about his beliefs, and he understands he must be held accountable for his actions,” the report says.
Handy was scheduled to be sentenced by Kollar-Kotelly on May 14 at 9 a.m. Defendants Hinshaw, Idoni and Goodman were also scheduled to be sentenced that day. Geraghty, Darnel, Marshal and Bell were scheduled to be sentenced on May 15. Harlow was scheduled to be sentenced on May 16. Idoni’s sentencing hearing was set for June 21.