The Orange County, California, district attorney’s office has announced that two baby-body-parts dealers investigated after a series of undercover videos about the abortion industry’s profits on fetal tissue have been ordered to close down.
The companies are DV Biologics and DaVinci Biosciences.
They “must permanently close and cease all operations in the state of California within 60 and 120 days, respectively, pay a settlement amount of $7,785,000 through the donation of assets and biological materials to a non-profit academic and scientific teaching institution affiliated with a major U.S. medical school, and pay $195,000 in civil penalties,” explained a statement from the office of District Attorney Tony Rackauckas about a settlement in the case.
The companies were identified in undercover videos released in 2015 by the Center for Medical Progress which identified abortion-industry players, including those at Planned Parenthood, negotiating for pieces of the bodies of unborn infants killed through abortion.
The OCDA opened its investigation based on a complaint submitted by the CMP and, based on the evidence uncovered, “filed a complaint for violations for unlawful, unfair, and fraudulent business practices in the Superior Court in the state of California in Orange County.”
WND reported the details from the videos have been turned over to the Department of Justice, which confirmed in a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that an investigation was under way into potential criminal violations.
Committees in both houses of Congress had reviewed the undercover videos and recommended prosecutions.
The response to the revelations of the horrific practices and attitudes – one abortionist supported her desire for more money because because “I want a Lamborghini” – prompted states to defund the businesses, and that same proposal is pending in Congress.
Abortionists reacted by obtaining from an abortion-linked judge a censorship order for a few of the videos, and they also sued the undercover investigators for violating the abortionists’ privacy during their meetings in public locations.
Liberty Counsel has been defending one of the undercover videographers, Sandra Merritt.
“The lawsuit by the Orange County prosecutor began with the report generated by the House Select Committee investigating Planned Parenthood,” said Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel. “Now that the Department of Justice has picked up the investigation of Planned Parenthood, it is time for the source that trafficked in baby body parts to also face justice. These despicable acts by these companies and their owners underscores why our client Sandra ‘Susan’ Merritt should be applauded for revealing the seedy underbelly of Planned Parenthood.”
The prosecutor in Orange County explained the defendant companies back in 2009 decided to go for a “revenue-driven unit” selling “products derived from the cells and tissues they were already collecting, processing, storing and using for research purposes.”
They hired marketing consultants, created a catalog, developed marketing materials, advertised “fetal brain tissue” for as high as $1,100 a vial and promoted “25% off” discounts at various times.
“Between 2009 and 2011, the defendants nearly tripled sales revenues,” the DA said, by “unlawfully” selling “fetal-derived products to pharmaceutical companies and academic instittuions around the world.
Customers came from Japan, China, Singapore, Korea, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Australia, Netherlands, Canada and the United Kingdom.
By 2012 they had an inventory of “much greater than $4.4 million.”
The companies’ own documents revealed they concluded “1,000% gross [profit] does not seem unreasonable.”
But federal law forbids exchanging or transferring human tissue for “valuable consideration” and state law says essentially the same.
The DA’s statement continued: “There is a ‘societal belief’ … that ‘rejects commercialization of human organs and tissues and tolerates only an altruistic system of voluntary donation. ‘ … Thus, any such ‘commerce is generally seen as revolting.'”
Liberty Counsel explained: “DV Biologics and DaVinci Biosciences are owned by Andres Isaias, who is a part of an internationally known crime family. His uncles, Roberto Isaias and William Isaias, were convicted and sentenced in Ecuador for driving their bank into the ground and then using false documents to get a government bailout. Their fraud cost the country $661.5 million dollars and more than $200 million in assets were not recovered.”
The group continued: “However, rather than Roberto and William serving eight years in prison, the extended family made $320,000 in political donations between 2010-2014. The vast majority of which went to Democrat candidates, including $90,000 to President Obama’s re-election campaign. They sought asylum in America with their extended families, and their immigration received expedited treatment from the Hillary Clinton-led State Department. Hillary Clinton’s State Department actively fought Ecuador’s requests to deport the brothers, according to The New York Times. Up to now, many extended family members were involved in these companies.”
When the DOJ investigation was confirmed earlier, Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue and a CMP board member, said, “It is gratifying to learn that a criminal investigation of the nation’s largest abortion merchant is under way.”
WND reported in October the FBI said it was reviewing the recommendations of two congressional committees to investigate evidence of Planned Parenthood’s trade in the body parts of unborn children.
Liberty Counsel noted the Senate Judiciary Committee and the U.S. House Select Panel on Infant Lives both opened investigations into the abortion industry after CMP first exposed the baby-body-parts trade in 2015. Late last year, both committees concluded their investigations by recommending that the FBI investigate and potentially file criminal charges against Planned Parenthood.
‘True face of Planned Parenthood’
The letter from Justice Department Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Stephen Boyd verified a criminal investigation was ongoing.
“As a co-founder of the Center for Medical Progress, I am very proud our work in exposing Planned Parenthood’s criminal conduct,” said Newman.
“The videos show the true face of Planned Parenthood; one that is obsessed with exploiting every possible profit stream from their abortion business at the expense of the women they purport to serve,” Newman continued. “Greed, deception, and exploitation of the vulnerable are all hallmarks of Planned Parenthood’s nefarious activities.”
Newman and other CMP members continue to fight federal lawsuits filed by Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation, which won an injunction to halt the release of further videos and barred the sharing of videos with law enforcement officials even if they contained evidence of crimes.
CMP founder David Daleiden said: “Over two years ago, citizen journalists at The Center for Medical Progress first caught Planned Parenthood’s top abortion doctors in a series of undercover videos callously and flippantly negotiating the sale of tiny baby hearts, lungs, livers, and brains. Since then, two congressional investigations found even deeper wrongdoing and confirmed that Planned Parenthood Federation of America, several of their biggest affiliates, and multiple business partners broke the law in a profit-driven scheme to commodify dismembered baby body parts. It is time for public officials to finally hold Planned Parenthood and their criminal abortion enterprise accountable under the law.”
Because the Obama administration was in the White House at the time the congressional referrals were made, nothing was done, and the reviews have only begun under the Trump administration.
One of the videos showed an official admitting Planned Parenthood sells fully intact aborted babies.
[jwplayer RiJygVb1]
Crushing babies
In the first undercover video released by CMP, Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood commented on crushing babies.
“We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact,” she said.
See the first video:
[jwplayer 7pzwagZg]
In the second video, Planned Parenthood’s Mary Gatter discussed how her compensation for organs could rise when she said, “I want a Lamborghini.”
See her comments:
[jwplayer vbPjx8h2]
The fifth video released shows Melissa Farrell of Planned Parenthood’s Houston clinic discussing “intact fetal cadavers.”
[jwplayer 6YZC1nO2]
The seventh video has the testimony of a Planned Parenthood worker who tapped an aborted infant’s heart and saw it start beating.
[jwplayer 5wFzwlF1]
WND reported when a Planned Parenthood-linked judge in California, William Orrick III, censored the latest undercover video that was released.
Even news outlets not party to the case were barred from posting the video.
WND, however, transcribed for its readers the comments of the abortion-industry figures.
Lisa Harris, medical director for Planned Parenthood of Michigan, says in the video: “Our stories don’t really have a place in a lot of pro-choice discourse and rhetoric, right? The heads that get stuck that we can’t get out. The hemorrhages that we manage.”
Susan Robinson of Planned Parenthood of Mar Monte in San Jose, California: “The fetus is a tough little object and taking it apart, I mean taking it apart, on day one is very difficult.’
Talcott Camp, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Health Freedom Project: “I’m like oh my god! I get it! When the skull is broken, that’s really sharp. I get it, I understand why people are talking about getting that skull out, that calvarium.”
Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services at Planned Parenthood Federation of America: “You know, sometimes she’ll tell me she wants brain, and we’ll, you know, leave the calvarium in ’til last, and then try to basically take it, or actually, you know, catch everything, and even keep it separate from the rest of the tissue so it doesn’t get lost.”
Uta Landy, founder of the Consortium of Abortion providers for Planned Parenthood: “An eyeball just fell down into my lap, and that is gross.”
Her comment was followed by raucous laughter from the abortionists at the meeting of the National Abortion Federation, where the undercover video was taken.
The video was the work of the Center for Medical Progress, which since 2015 has released more than a dozen videos of abortionists. Most of the videos have been released to the public, but the National Abortion Federation went to court demanding that videos of its members speaking be removed from the Web.
There were other notable comments in the videos.
Ann Schutt-Aine of Planned Parenthood of the Gulf Coast: “If I’m doing a procedure, and I’m seeing that I’m in fear that it’s about to come to the umbilicus, I might ask for a second set of forceps to hold the body at the cervix, and pull off a leg, or two, so it’s not PBA (partial-birth abortion).”
Harris again: “Given that we actually see the fetus the same, and given that we might actually both agree that there’s violence in here, ask me why I come to work every day. Let’s just give them all the violence, it’s a person, it’s killing, let’s just give them all that.”
Susan Robinson of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte: “You go in there, and you go, ‘am I getting the uterus, or the fetus? Oh good fetus. What have I got. Nothing. Let’s try again.'”
Leslie Drummond of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte: “I get a lot of ‘oohs’ and aahs’ from Stemex(press) you know, they’re wanting livers. Last week I was in Sacramento and she said, ‘I need four intact limbs’ and I said ‘you want what?'”
Paul Blumenthal, Planned Parenthood of Maryland: “I know Planned Parenthood sells a lot of stuff (fetal organs) to people.”
Deb Vanderhei of the Consortium of Abortion Providers: “But the truth is that some might want to do it for, to increase their revenues. And we can’t stop them.”