By Michael Hernandez, 9-26-22
KINTNERVILLE, PENNSLYVANIA—American Center for Law and Justice Senior Counsel Andy Ekonomu called the FBI Friday (Sept. 23) home raid of pro-life activist Mark Houck “against all legal, moral authority of God.” Houck is the founder and president of The King’s Men, which promotes healing for victims of pornography addiction and promotes Christian virtues among men in the United States and Europe.
Houck, 48, was arrested Friday morning by a team of at least two dozen FBI agents who had guns drawn at his residence in a small unincorporated community of Kintnerville, population 3,000 in Bucks County, approximately 42 miles from Philadelphia. His crime according to the FBI’s warrant: was violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, FACE (which protects Planned Parenthood abortion clinics) and an alleged “attack of a patient escort.”
However, the facts of this incident go back to last October according to ACLJ Senior Counsel CeCe Heil to an incident where Houck was protecting his son from a Planned Parenthood escort in a case that was reviewed by local police, a District Attorney and then went to a civil case and dropped prior to the Department of Justice and the FBI deciding to come to the defense of abortion activists and reactivate the case with criminal proceedings in a federal court. Houck faces a maximum sentence of criminal charges that could put him in jail for up to 11 years with three years of supervised release and fines of up to $350,000.
During Monday’s broadcast of the ACLJ radio show heard and seen throughout the nation, Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow said that the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances requires blockage of a Planned Parenthood facility which did not happen as the father of seven tried to protect his son who was with him at a pro-life sidewalk protest last October. (Editor’s Note: To hear the ACLJ broadcast go to:
https://aclj.org/pro-life/fbi-raids-continue-pro-life-activist-arrested.)
Mark’s wife, Ryan-Marie, a homeschooling mom with seven children, told LifeSite News, “when he opened the door, ‘they had big, huge rifles pointed at Mark and pointed at me and kind of pointed throughout the house.’ When they came in, they ordered the kids to stay upstairs. “Our staircase is open, so (the kids) were at the top of the stairs which faces the front door, and I was on the stairs as well, coming down. The kids were all just screaming. It was all just very scary and traumatic.’ After asking them why they were at the house, the agents said they were there to arrest Mark. When Ryan-Marie asked for their warrant, ‘they said that they were going to take him whether they had a warrant or not.’
When Ryan-Marie protested, saying that is kidnapping, ‘you can’t just come to a person’s house and kidnap them at gunpoint,’ they agreed to get the warrant for her from one of their vehicles.
ACLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow called this latest action of the Department of Justice and the FBI “the weaponizing of our institutions” while Executive Director Jordan Sekulow said: “you’re not going to shut up…they don’t realize that pro-life protestors are non-violent and they don’t give up.”
According to Andy Ekonomu: “This is the politicization of the FBI and our government to further a political agenda. These are policy decisions and not law. This is aimed at stifling pro-life activists. (They want to send a message: we’re) going to come after you with guns blazing in a criminal fashion.”
“They shackled him and took him away,” said Jay Sekulow. “Our job as lawyers is to not let these injustices go away without some reckoning in the legal system.”
As of Monday noon (Sept. 26), an online fund drive had raised over $188,000 on a GiveSendGo Pro-Life account to Support the Houck Family with legal costs.
(Editor: To see three related articles on the pro-life fight in LifeSiteNews go to:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/biden-and-the-democrats-have-declared-war-on-christians/
(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
