ABORTION INDUSTRY IN MELBOURNE, FLORIDA
LAWSUITS
OCALA WOMEN'S CENTER V CITY OF OCALA
DOCKET / CHRONOLOGICAL FILE
PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION AND PARTIAL SUMMARY JUDGMENT

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
JACKSONVILLE DIVISION
NO. 98-371-CIV-OC-10C

OCALA WOMEN'S CENTER, INC., et al,
Plaintiffs,

-versus-

CITY OF OCALA, FLORIDA, et al, EDWARD JAMES MARTIN SR aka "ED MARTIN," et al,
Defendants.

MOTION & MEMORANDUM OF PLAINTIFFS OWC FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION & PARTIAL SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Plaintiffs Ocala Women's Center and Dr Pendergraft [hereafter "OWC"] respectfully move this Court for the preliminary injunctive relief set forth in the proposed Order, and for partial summary judgment on certain major legal questions presented. In support of this motion, OWC submits the verified complaint, supporting affidavits, fifteen additional exhibits, and this memorandum of law:

SUBJECT MATTER OF CASE

This is a civil action by a reproductive health care facility to enforce rights under F.A.C.E., 18 USC §248, the Civil Rights Acts, 42 USC §§1983-1986, and other laws.

In brief, defendants are impeding and obstructing, clinic access, engaging in threats, harassment, and intimidation, and otherwise damaging the lawful activities of a Florida licensed reproductive health service provider.

The Ocala Women's Center [hereafter "OWC"] first seeks nondiscriminatory law enforcement protection, both on-duty and paid off-duty assignments, which OWC has repeatedly requestedand been denied.

The City of Ocala and Ocala Police Chief, and the Sheriff's office, presently forbid officers to work off-duty at OWC. They allow such work generally for other area businesses and organizations, including a nearby pool hall. The police Chief officially and personally must approve of such businesses' activities, however. Both policies are vague, allow unbridled discretionary denial, and raise serious Equal Protection, Due Process, and §1983 concerns.

OWC secondly seeks injunctive relief to protect against the ongoing siege, harassment, and intimidating activities by the looming Ed Martin class. That group and ever-changing class regularly surround the OWC building area, without legitimate right or invitation. They surveil and invade the privacy of patients, harass patients and staff, create dangerous traffic hazards, and contribute to numerous traffic accidents through their many strange and unpredictable distractions. Their activity is in the nature of stalking, harassment, and intimidation. It is far over the bounds of free speech.

They have innumerable alternative means of communication to their pointedly unwilling captive audiences, but prefer confrontational harassment of physicians and patients, and must be restrained.

The Martin group, and Ed Martin in particular, daily set up dangerously distracting props such as baby carriages, dolls, grim reapers, and inflammatory signs right beside the busy highway. They yell and wave at the traffic on the moving highway. These activities have contributed to numerous vehicular accidents, at least eight known to OWC.

Most recently, on Wednesday, February 10, 1999, yet another traffic accident occurred in front of OWC. Ed Martin quickly left the scene after the accident, and was seen as he hurriedly departed with his props, probably to avoid being a witness or even a defendant. No off-duty officers were present to witness the accident or the sudden departure of a material witness. Off-duty officers are barred by the City, Chief, and Sheriff from part-time paid employment as OWC security.

The latter individual injunctive relief is similar to the buffer zone ordered against the same Ed Martin himself and other professional unemployed clinic harassers in Madsen v WHC, 512 US 753 (1994).

Buffer zone protection is further explicitly authorized by F.A.C.E., 18 USC §248, and has been ordered extensively nationwide against similar forms of systematic harassment. A recent leading federal case is United States v Scott, 975 F Supp 428 (D Conn 1997)(applying FACE). See also United States v Bird, 124 F3d 667 (5th Cir 1997)(supervised defendant must stay 1000 feet away from clinic); Murray v Lawson, 649 A2d 1253 (NJ 1994)(100 feet away from physician's home, <10 protestors, only one hour every two weeks, notification to police required).

This case seeks similar and additional relief based upon the need to devise effective and realistic modern remedies against unemployed, unpredictable professional clinic harassers, i.e., especially Messrs Martin and Raney. They have a long track record in the judicial system. They systematically circumvent prior clinic and judicial security efforts. Creative protection against such devious lawlessness is needed.

Patients and staff reasonably fear for their safety in the hostile work environment created by the Martin group, and promoted & tolerated by the City, County, and Sheriff. In many respects, this hostile activity is far worse than that proscribed by other civil rights laws on sexual harassment and discrimination. The victims here, aside from two physicians, are all women, seeking exclusively women's health care. The harassment and discrimination are plainly gender-based.

JURISDICTION

This Court has ample jurisdiction under F.A.C.E., 18 USC §248, the Civil Rights Acts, 28 USC §1343, FDPPA, 18 USC §2721, and the Federal Supplemental Jurisdiction Statute, 28 USC §1367, for any state law privacy, nuisance, trespass, defamation, stalking, harassment, or other issues that may be intertwined with the federal questions.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

The 41-page complaint, exhibits, and detailed affidavits of clinic staff (Tab 14), set out the nature of this case in relevant and material detail. The clinic staff affidavits under Tab 14 are very much in point on the relief that is urgently needed.

This is a case of considerable importance to the physicians, staff, and patients at risk of harassment and worse daily. Florida has had enough physician murders and violent attacks on clinics. See United States v Hill, 893 F Supp 1048 (ND Fla.1994)(F.A.C.E. prosecution of clinic harasser who gunned down physician in Pensacola).

Off-duty police and a strictly enforced buffer zone deter dangerous activity such as bombing and shooting, as well as direct harassment, surveillance of license plates, and other privacy and security-invading misconduct present here.

These submissions outline the several kinds of irreparable injury and the burdens on constitutional privacy and security rights in complaint paragraphs 107-117, pp 23-25.

That is one key element supporting preliminary injunctive relief. It is more than required by the case law. Here there are plain violations of a federal statute that constitute irreparable injury per se. The public interest and policy issues for preliminary injunctive relief are set out on pp 25 & 26, paragraphs 118-121 of the complaint. An Act of Congress, a long series of Supreme Court decisions, and the Florida laws and Constitution provide the supporting public policy. E.g., Doe v Bolton, 410 US 179 (1973).

SUCCESS ON THE MERITS

This case raises substantial constitutional and statutory claims on the merits. First is the City, Police, and Sheriff refusal to permit off-duty officers to work part-time at OWC. That discrimination raises serious Equal Protection questions.

Second is the problem of traffic interference, physical, and loud verbal clinic harassment by the Ed Martin group, and the impeding of entry and departure from the facility. Relief is needed under the law of Madsen v WHC, 512 US 753 (1994)(Tab 2}, subsequent cases, and F.A.C.E., 18 USC §248{Tab 1}.

Third is the threatening activity by the County, designed to intimidate OWC from opening its reproductive health care facility in Ocala. These threats included thinly veiled references to family danger, to prior fire bombings, arson, and shootings at other facilities. A fact finder can reasonably see these as vicious .threats, per se violations of F.A.C.E., intolerable to a Court or jury. OWC has a substantial probability of success on the merits of each and every claim.

Preliminary injunctive relief as requested in the complaint is necessary and appropriate for the safety of OWC associated persons. Such relief vigorously enforced could be determinative in preventing future violence, arson, bombings, and further damage to OWC. The Court may also grant partial summary judgment on legal questions which involve minimal or no factual dispute, such as the discriminatory off-duty officer policies of the City and of the Sheriff, and the compelling need to keep the Ed Martin group away from the highway and clinic, from obstructing access, from photographing and videotaping people and license plates, and from swarming about patients and staff.

RECENT PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION DECISIONS

Bledsoe v Jacksonville Beach, 20 F Supp2d 1317 (MD Fla 1998), recently ordered a permanent injunction against a Police Chief. He would only authorize event permits for groups that promoted his view of the very vague term "family values." This was impermissible unlimited police discretion.

Bledsoe and this case are remarkably similar. The Ocala .Chief will not allow off-duty police officers to work for extra pay, unless the Chief subjectively approves the business. He does not approve of reproductive health care clinics. He has some mental compartment for disapproved entities such as abortion clinics, topless bars, adult bookstores, and only he knows what else.

Also recently from this district, Robinson v Power Pizza, 993 F Supp 1462 (MD Fla 1998), involved discriminatory refusal of pizza delivery services. Injunctive relief was granted.

While pizza is important, access to medical and surgical services without fear and harassment is fundamentally more significant, and warrants injunctive protection.

OWC notes that in this Circuit, preliminary injunctive relief may be granted on papers, without a formal hearing and testimony. OWC is prepared for argument and testimony, but the present submission covers the material thoroughly. See McDonald's v Robinson, 147 F3d 1301 {11th Cir 1998)(evidentiary hearing not required).

NOT A FIRST AMENDMENT BURDEN

The Martin group will invariably invoke its view of a First Amendment interest in swarming all over total strangers with whom they disagree, to intimidate and harass them with Christian "love." That model, however, has little application on the doorsteps of a private medical and surgical facility.

The problem of clinic harassment does not fit any model of First Amendment protest in a public forum. The OWC scene is a medical facility, where privacy and calm are paramount and necessary. Medical privacy is a fundamental federal and state concern, and has been for a century. The objectionable behavior of the Martin group has long since gone from attempted persuasion into organized harassment and intimidation. While the sidewalk is technically public, that is for the purpose of going to and from the buildings. It is not designated as a public debating square, much less a platform for harassment and intimidation.

Alternate channels of free speech, and safer locations 1500 feet away from OWC are ample. Every other free speaker in Ocala is somewhere else, not trying to put a foot in the door of the clinic, not photographing and videotaping persons seeking medical care, not shouting at doctors about shooting.

This is more of a domestic relations and stalking legal context. Pure political or religious expression is a sham issue. Activity by the Martin group is the link in the fundamentalist organization chain where staff are harassed, and patients are intimidated, threatened, and misled by non-medical nonsense into surrendering their constitutional rights of choice under stress. The looming threat of exposure through photos and license plate copying is a powerful intimidator, especially in the small Ocala community.

Protective injunctions and restraining orders are vitally necessary in American law today to prevent ex-spouses and stalkers from harassing and intimidating others. Such injunctions are even more essential to protect clinics, patients, and doctors from unpredictable and unidentifiable stranger-zealots who have a notorious track record of clinic harassment.

Consider these issues by analogy to protecting our public courthouses. For every courthouse bombing, there are at least a hundred clinic bombings, arsons, or acid attacks. There was more violence toward Florida clinics in 1998 than to Florida courthouses in the entire decade. Courts can protect themselves with federal officers backed by a federal budget. Even the well-protected Supreme Court requested 36 more security officers for the 1999-2000 Budget. Clinics need security even more.

I. DENIAL OF PAID OFF-DUTY POLICE PROTECTION TO OWC IS UNJUSTIFIABLE & DISCRIMINATORY IN VIOLATION OF THE EQUAL PROTECTION & DUE PROCESS CLAUSES OF THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT

The Equal Protection - Due Process issues in this case are straightforward. The City allows off-duty police officers to work part-time for some businesses or organizations, but not others. That sets up a suspicious classification, with no apparent justification related to the "protect and serve" police rationale.

The Ocala Women's Center is excluded. OWC challenges that exclusion as invidious discrimination, unreasonable, arbitrary, and unlawful. OWC is neither protected nor served, but abandoned. This discrimination plainly violates clearly established case law on equal access to governmental services, and non-discrimination against reproductive health care.

Supreme Court cases on Equal Protection establish useful principles and various levels of review. Although heightened or. intermediate scrutiny would be appropriate, the City, Police, and Sheriff actions cannot satisfy even a rational basis analysis.

The Equal Protection standard here is clearly established and was expressed in the reproductive health care context as early as 1972, over twenty-six years ago. (This puts defendants on ample notice.) The Court in Eisenstadt v Baird, 405 US 438, 447 (1972), stated:

There must be "some ground of difference that rationally explains the different treatment .... "405 US at 447. Baird found no legitimate rational basis for a policy banning distribution of contraceptives to competent unmarried persons.

Denial of off-duty policy protection is just another form of deterrent to privacy-related activities. "No police" means "no witnesses" and no power to arrest, except the slowest of criminals. OWC would like to see the fast criminals apprehended as well, before shots are fired, or fire bombs planted again. Doe v Bolton, 410 US 179 (1973), the companion to Roe v Wade, 410 US 113 (1973), was specifically decided on Fundamental Rights / Equal Protection grounds. 410 US at 194.

Equal protection analysis regarding reproductive health appears in this Circuit as early as 1975. See Poe v Gerstein, 517 F2d 787, 791-792 (5th Cir- Fla){1975), aff'd, 428 US 901 (1976)(per curiam) (discrimination against minors and married women).

Outside of health care, Equal Protection standards in other analogous areas are also applicable. For example, Plyler v Doe, 457 US 202 (1982), found an Equal Protection violation in excluding the children of illegal aliens from the benefit of public schools. The slim rationale of Texas there would not even apply here, because OWC is an ordinary Ocala business entity. OWC simply offends fundamentalists who congregate in large numbers in Ocala. Similarly, City of Cleburne v Cleburne Living Center, 473 US 432 (1985), encountered another form of municipal prejudice: against group homes for mentally challenged persons. The Court found this prejudice irrational. There was no special threat to any legitimate City interest. The same is true here with regard to OWC and the need for off-duty police protection. Compare United States v Virginia, 135 L Ed2d 735 (US 1996)(benefit of VMI education may not be denied on basis of gender); Griffin v County School Board, 377 US 218 (1964)(benefit of public schools may not be denied by closure).

PUBLIC SERVICES & EQUAL PROTECTION

A body of case law from this and other Circuits has considered the problem of invidious discrimination in public services, benefits, accommodations, and police protection. Early cases involved racial discrimination. Others concerned a diverse American variety of constitutional and fundamental rights and interests. The City and Sheriff are on notice of these cases, and should be aware that police protection cannot be denied on judicially insubstantial grounds, or ruses about whether the City has any obligation in the first place to allow off-duty requests.

The nationally leading case on equality in public services is Dowdell v City of Apopka, 698 F2d 1181 (11th Cir 1983). Street paving, water distribution, and drainage were at issue. Police protection is just as important. The Dowdell Court found a denial of Equal Protection where those services were withheld on racial grounds. The constitutional violation is equally irrational here where based on an aversion to privacy, and reproductive health rights.

The City cannot disclaim its obligations or deny benefits on any irrational ground, particularly not one that implicates a fundamental right.

Cases in the Dowdell line include Ammons v Dade City, 783 F2d 982 (11th Cir 1986)(street paving and drainage); Hawkins v Town of Shaw, 437 F2d 1286 (5th Cir 1971), aff'd en banc, 461 F2d 1171 (5th Cir 1972); Johnson v Arcadia, 450 F Supp 1363 (MD Fla 1978)(paving, parks, water}; cf Gilmore v City of Montgomery, 417 US 556 (1974){city recreational facilities).

A further line of federal appellate decisions allows relief where police systematically downgrade a particular body of law, such as family domestic violence complaints. Here the City, Police, and Sheriff essentially ignore the off-duty protection needs of reproductive health care facilities. The Matthew Bender treatise POLICE CIVIL LIABILITY (1997}, by I Silver, devotes the entire Chapter 9, Vol 2, to the Police and City constitutional "Duty to Protect." Section 9.16 covers §1983 actions, and states:

The Thurman Court found the City to be "reckless" in its "hands-off" policy toward domestic disputes. The same is true here. It is grossly negligent and reckless to withhold off-duty police protection from OWC, particularly in light of the historical and ongoing dangers: the two arsons in Ocala, two physician murders in Pensacola, the daily siege of unidentified, unpredictable professional clinic harassers, the verbal threats.

One by one the Circuits have followed Thurman in similar cases of careless and reckless police indifference. See, e.g., Myers v County of Orange, 157 F3d 66 (2d Cir 1998)(unconstitutional policy of refusing cross-complaints); Nabozny v Podlesny, 92 F3d 446 (7th Cir 1996)(failure to protect student from harassment and harm); Navarro v Block, 72 F3d 712 (9th Cir 1996)(minimal police response to domestic violence calls}; Candelaria v Albuquerque, 768 F2d 1207 (10th Cir 1985)(city disregard of drainage hazards in ethnic community}.

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AS A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT

Safe and legal access to reproductive health care services was acknowledged as a fundamental right in Florida and this federal Circuit as early as 1973. Coe v Gerstein, 375 F Supp 695 (SD Fla 1973)(three-judge court). That much was clearly decided twenty-six long years ago statewide. Neither Ocala, the County, nor the Sheriff can deny having volume 376 of F Supp in numerous accessible law libraries. Coe was affirmed on the merits (after jurisdictional cross-appeals) in Poe v Getsrein, 517 F2d 787 (5th Cir - Fla). Poe was affirmed by the Supreme Court.

428 US 901 (1976)(per curiam). A substantial number of Florida cases in the intervening decades establish clearly that access to reproductive health care is a fundamental constitutional right. Direct and indirect obstacles to the full exercise of such rights have regularly been struck down by Florida federal district and appellate courts, be they zoning, clinic regulation, or some other burden. E.g., DMC v Deerfield Beach, 661 F2d 328 (5th Cir - Fla 1981)(zoning discrimination).

The City and Sheriff have pointedly disregarded this jurisprudence, treating the clinic like a topless bar.

Deerfield was about a City that tried to zone out a clinic. Denial of police protection is a form of zoning. It turns an area into a free fire zone for nimble criminals.

The case reports show us that Roe v Wade, 410 US 113 (1973), established fundamental liberty, privacy, and substantive due process rights & interests in the reproductive health care context. The companion case, Doe v Bolton, 410 US 179 (1973), recognized the fundamental nature of those rights in an Equal Protection analysis. Doe struck down several indirect obstacles and impediments to exercising the fundamental health care rights there involved.

Denial of police protection to OWC is an indirect impediment to access to health care. That denial increases the risk of going to OWC in any capacity. It turns the clinic into a facility under seige. The City of Ocala guarantees Mr Martin that no police officer will witness any assault, harassment, intimidation, shooting, arson, or bombing, by warranting a police .absence,' That is fundamentally wrong under the law.

NO LEGITIMATE INTEREST

One cannot know for certain what interests the City, Police Chief, and Sheriff will assert until they respond to this motion. The City in particular has declined efforts at informal investigation and discovery since the clinic opened in July 1998, nine months ago. The City "Answer" is Uninformative on this score. Plaintiffs can only postulate various interests, none of which seems remotely sufficient under the case law to deny paid off-duty police protection to this clinic under siege.

Crime Prevention and Apprehension: The absence of off-duty law enforcement is counterproductive to preventing and prosecuting anticipated crime. That interest is not rationally related to exclusion of the clinic from protection.

Security and Protection: An absent police officer or sheriff cannot provide security and protection to the clinic. Someone must be there with arrest powers to deter and apprehend trespassers and arsonists. There is no rational connection here.

Crime Investigation: An absent officer enters any investigation without first hand knowledge. Excluding off-duty officers from OWC guarantees a disadvantage in crime investigation. The two prior arsons went unsolved in Ocala. An off-duty officer might have seen suspicious persons "casing."

Public Resource Allocation: Paid off-duty police' work does not entail thinly dispersing limited resources. This is extra work. with pay from the clinic, not a City burden. The exclusion is not rationally related to this possible interest.

Public Image of Police Chief and Sheriff: This is it. The Chief asserts, on good information and belief, an absolute interest in controlling police assignments. Such control enables him to cultivate an appropriate image of the police department, according to his shifting view of what that image should be.

In 1999, in Ocala, reproductive health is associated by the Chief with negative connotations, i.e., topless bars and such. He therefore rationally, to himself, excludes OWC in order to enhance the City image. So what if the clinic is torched again.

The problem with this "Interest" is its irrationality and sweeping ambiguity. This Chief opposes abortion, perhaps birth control. May he bar off-duty officers from all buildings where ob/gyn is practiced? No.

Suppose the next Chief is a faith healer. May he bar off-duty officers from all doctors, clinics, and hospitals? No.

Suppose a Chief is a strong meat and potato man. May he bar off-duty officers from health or vegetarian bars, or vice-versa?

The problem is straightforward and the solution clear. The City and Chief may not discriminate in this way based upon their shifting subjective personal preferences. They must be tolerant, especially when dealing with discrimination against fundamental constitutional interests.

NO RATIONAL RELATIONSHIP

Whatever the interests claimed by the Police and Sheriff, the ban on off-duty police protection must be reasonably related to an articulable, concrete legitimate interest. It appears not to be so related. The legitimate interests of law enforcement all favor allowing off-duty police protection. The subjective interest and vagueness of "police image" are vague, not rational, not legitimate, and not rationally related to public goals.

It follows that this Court should order the City, Police, and Sheriff to provide off-duty police protection for OWC, to be paid by OWC, and assigned routinely upon request. Any future attempt to close down the program, and metaphorically take the football home, should be emphatically excluded as an option.

II. THE HARASSING, INTIMIDATING, AND SIEGE ACTIVITIES OF THE ED MARTIN GROUP INVOLVE THREATENING CONDUCT AND EFFECTS THAT SHOULD BE RESTRAINED ON THE AUTHORITY OF F.A.C.E., 18 USC §248 AND MADSEN (US 1994)

Unwanted harassment and stalking by strangers are the key forms of dangerous injury here. The looming Martin group is all over incoming and outgoing patients, physicians, and staff. The privacy invasion is massive, with Martin videotaping people, cars, and license plates. The Tab 8&11 photos show Martin with the ever-present camera, held like the dangerous weapon of blackmail and intimidation it is. With technical support from computer-wizard Raney, Martin could write, call, or drop by a patient's home the very same night. He has the ability, to distribute a dossier on each patient, physician, and staff member to their neighbors by nightfall. He is a highly likely contributor to the infamous "Jay's Killer Website," www.forerunner.com, and the extremist Nuremburg Files, www.christiangallery.com, now banned from the Net.

Videotape and blackmail by anti-abortion harassers have happened in the past in Florida. This is feared daily by every patient and staff member. (Tab 14 Affidavits). Doctor "hit lists" are standard tools of intimidation for Martin and Raney, and have been the subject of federal litigation elsewhere, i.e., Portland. See Planned Parenthood v American Coalition, 945 F Supp 1355 (D Ore 1996)(FACE and RICO claims stated against anti-abortion harassers who distribute "Wanted" posters and "Hit Lists" of physicians and others).

Martin must be restrained in time, place, and manner, consistent with Privacy and First Amendment interests.

IMPACT ON DEFENDANTS

The proposed injunction seeks to move the Martin group off the block, away from the busy highway beside the clinic, away from the private activity of patients and staff, away from the private provision of medical and reproductive health care services. It is a time and place injunction. It will restore OWC to the peace and quiet enjoyed by every other medical office in Ocala that has kept free from fundamentalist extremists.

As Schenck v Pro-Choice Network, 137 L Ed2d 1,20 (1997), explained:

Schenck had as here a "dangerous situation created by the interaction between cars and protestors and because of the fights ...."Id at 20. In Schenck also as here "[m]any of the 'sidewalk counselors' ... ha[d] been arrested ... for harassment, yet persist in harassing and intimidating patients, patient escorts, and medical staff." Id at 26.

The injunction here, like the ordinance in Medlin v Palmer, 874 F2d 1085, 1090 (5th Cir 1989), "falls way short of precluding alternative avenues of communication.... [It] protects patients ... from the unwarranted intrusion .... " Also, "employees are entitled to a work environment that allows them to function effectively ... without having to 'run a gauntlet ....' "A medical facility should never be forced to endure a threatening and intimidating siege environment. "[T]he medical privacy and wellbeing of patients ..." should always be paramount in a civilized society. Schenck, supra, at 21.

The Tab 14 affidavits are self-explanatory, and elaborate on the harassment, often in a chilling way.

The attached proposed injunction attempts to cover each harassment problem that poses a threat of intimidation, violence, privacy-invasion, or other cognizable legal concern.

The distance 1500 feet is chosen because Martin's camera cannot resolve faces and license plates well at that distance. A buffer zone of 250 feet would stop the blockage of driveways and the side street swarming, but not the dangers from photographing patients and license plates.

RELIEF REQUESTED

OWC and Dr Pendergraft respectfully and urgently request the Court to grant the full injunctive relief set out in the proposed order submitted herewith.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:
Roy Lucas (signed)
Trial Counsel
c/o PO Box 1433
Melbourne,FL32902-1433
TEL: 1-407-725-2413
FAX: 1-407-725-3847

Scott R Rost
Wasserman & Walters
228 Park Ave North
Winter Park, FL 32789.
TEL: 1-407-539-1140
FAX: 1-407-539-1126

ATTORNEYS FOR OWC et al PLAINTIFFS.

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE: The foregoing Motion and Memorandum of Plaintiffs OWC for Preliminary Injunction and Partial Summary Judgment has been served by the undersigned RL by First Class mail, postage prepaid, sent this Tuesday, the 15th day of March, 1999, to the following who are counsel for all appearing adverse parties:

Patrick Gilligan, Esq
7 E Silver Springs Blvd, Ste 500
Ocala, FL 34470
TEL: 352-867-7707
FAX: 352-867-0237
[for City & Police Chief]

Carol Falvey, Esq
PO Box 2720
Ocala, FL 34478-2720
[for Sheriff defendants]

Virgil Wright, Esq
PO Box 5549
Ocala, FL 34478-5549
[for Marion County defendants]

Mathew Stayer, Esq
1900 Summit Twr Blvd, Ste 560
Orlando, FL 32810
TEL: 407-875-2100
FAX: 407-875-0770
[for Ed Martin]

Frederick Nelson, Esq
PO Box 547503
Orlando, FL 32854-7503
TEL: 407-786-7007
FAX: 407-786-2705
[for Meredith Raney]

BY: Roy Lucas (signed)

TAB 14 AFFIDAVITS

AFFIDAVIT OF ABORTIONIST PENDERGRAFT

AFFIDAVIT OF MICHAEL SPIELVOGEL

MICHAEL SPIELVOGEL, being duly sworn, makes this affidavit under oath in connection with the matter of Ocala Women's Center and Dr JS Pendergraft versus the City of Ocala, County of Marion, and others:

1. In January 1998, which I recall was shortly after the publicized terrorist bombing of the reproductive health care facility (1/18/1998) in Birmingham, AL, I became involved in assisting Dr Pendergraft and OWC with opening such a much needed facility in the City of Ocala, Marion County, FL.

2. A previous Ocala facility, several years earlier, had been burned to the ground twice. Ocala area patients, therefore had to travel substantial and risky distances for health care that is their legal entitlement.

3. By 1/98 Dr Pendergraft was receiving organized mass mailings, purporting to be from sectarian groups and individuals, including veiled and overt attempts at threats and intimidation to deter him from opening OWC in Ocala.

4. I was involved in the real estate and building aspects of the project. My communications with Marion County were by telephone with Commissioner Larry Cretul. He was acting as the County agent, for the commissioners had discussed this project and voiced vigorous opposition previously.

5. My conversations with Mr Cretul took place from my home in Orlando, and at Dr Pendergraft's office. In the most unforgettable conversation, Larry Cretul said the following to me in substance:

6. Mr Cretul made a number of similar statements in the same veiled threatening manner, and together these were profoundly upsetting, and caused me to fear for the llfe and safety of my wife, Dr Pendergraft, other doctors, and the whole clinic staff, who could be victims of this profoundly disturbed and dangerous way of thlnking.

7. Dr Pendergraft was in the room during this particular conversation, And can attest to my terror and reaction.

8. As with anyone in this field, I am aware of the dangerous domestic terrorists out there. Clinic security is a huge, expensive, dangerous aspect of this business, especially in Florida, where acid attacks, shootings, arson, and bombings occur far too frequently. Congress is being asked to appropriate millions for clinic security. That and vigorous enforcement of F.A.C.E. are necessary to protect the people involved in reproductive health care.

9. By comparison, for every one attack on a federal courthouse, there are probably one hundred on reproductive health care facilities. We cannot afford the security measures around federal courts. We need injunctions and off-duty police and marshals to protect our lives.

10. The statements by Larry Cretul were understood and perceived by me as not very subtle threats: to me, my wife, and OWC staff, county-sanctioned. I felt then and still do feel seriously threatened by the official and unofficial hostility of the County toward OWC. I know the arsons of before are unsolved. The arsonists have no doubt checked out the clinic again, for a promised repeat performance.

11. I reported Mr Cretul's statements promptly to the F.B.I. in Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, and Ocala, as they shuffled me around. Communication with Mr Cretul then ended, but no action was taken. If this had been a threat on a federal judge, there would have surely been a more vigorous F.B.I. effort.

12. I am a very reluctant witness in this case because of the County-sanctioned threats and hostility, such attempted intimidation by the County is a very real threat and encouragement to arsonists and shooters in the area. I am well aware that Marion County is considered a home and haven for leaders of the Klan, supporters of the Army of God, and who knows what else.

Michael Spielvogel (signed)

Subscribed and sworn to Before me this 24th day of February, 1999.
Gina M Loren (signed)
Notary Public
My commission # CC 874731 Expires: August 26, 2001

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