A Florida man on Thursday was sentenced to one year and a day in prison for conspiring to intimidate employees of pro-life pregnancy centers and interfere with their ability to provide reproductive health services, federal officials stated.
Caleb Freestone, along with co-defendants Amber Smith-Stewart and Annarella Rivera, targeted centers that offered alternatives to abortion. They vandalized these facilities with threatening messages.
Court documents reveal the trio carried out the attacks at night, wearing masks and dark clothing to conceal their identities.
They spray-painted messages like “If abortions aren’t safe, neither are you,” “YOUR TIME IS UP,” and “We’re coming for you.” The defendants pleaded guilty to a civil rights conspiracy on June 14.
“These defendants admitted that they conspired to paint threatening messages on crisis pregnancy centers, based on the defendants’ objection to the services those centers offered,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Violence and threats of violence have no place in our national discourse on reproductive health. The Justice Department is committed to protecting the right to access reproductive health care and prosecuting anyone who interferes with that right.”
Smith-Stewart and Rivera were also each sentenced Thursday to 30 days in prison and 60 days in home detention, respectively.
The FBI Tampa Field Office investigated the case, with assistance from the Miami Police Department.
Trial Attorney Laura-Kate Bernstein of the Civil Rights Division’s Criminal Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Courtney Derry for the Middle District of Florida are prosecuting the case.