NOTES BETWEEN PRINTED EDITIONS
PRO-LIFE HERO MARK HOUCK
VINDICATED!
On October 13, 2021, sidewalk counselor Mark Houck—a Catholic father of seven, and a volunteer for 40 Days For Life—was praying outside of the Planned Parenthood Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center on Locust Street in Philadelphia.
An angry clinic escort confronted Mark’s eleven year old son, and began harassing and verbally abusing the child, using obscene language.
Mark defended his son and pushed the aggressor away, causing the man to fall to the ground.
The Philadelphia Police declined to arrest Mark, and one of the most left-wing District Attorneys in America, the Soros backed Larry Krasner, declined to prosecute him.
The clinic escort filed a complaint against Mark, but then failed to appear at the court hearing, and the case was dismissed.
Eleven months later, on September 23, 2022, the the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, announced the indictment of Mark Houck for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.
U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero—a Biden appointee—said Houck, if convicted, faced up to eleven years in prison and $350,000 in fines.
She said the prosecution would be conducted by her office, in conjunction with Trial Attorney Sanjay Patel, of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.
In an early morning raid that same day, nearly twenty-five FBI agents, dressed in armored vests and ballistic helmets, carrying shields, a crow bar and a battering ram, and armed with long guns, arrested Mark in his home in front of his wife and his terrified children. He was interrogated for six hours.
Represented by attorneys from the Thomas More Society, a federal trial jury in Philadelphia acquitted Mark of all charges on January 30, 2023.
Mark and his wife Ryan-Marie—who suffered multiple miscarriages after the incident—subsequently sued the Justice Department and the FBI for malicious and retaliatory prosecution, abuse of process, false arrest, and assault.
On April 9, 2026, the Department of Justice settled the civil lawsuit, awarding Mark and his wife more than one million dollars.
On April 13th, reporter Cooper Williamson, of Blaze Media, reached out to the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, seeking a comment.
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle issued the following statement:
“All Americans who believe in the rule of law and in the non-partisan administration of justice should celebrate Mark Houck’s victorious settlement with the Department of Justice.
Houck was the victim of ideologically driven prosecutorial overreach by a corrupt, politicized Biden DOJ which had a history of selective prosecutions of FACE Act cases.
This unwarranted prosecution was preceded by a gratuitous, grossly excessive display of force by FBI agents in arresting Houck in front of his family.
The attorneys from the Thomas More Society and 40 Days For Life, who represented Houck, are to be commended for their successful defense of the First Amendment guarantees of free speech, free assembly and the free exercise of religion.
The conduct of Merrick Garland as Attorney General—in this case and in others—reminds us that America dodged a proverbial bullet when Senate Republicans stopped Garland from becoming an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.”
Doyle’s remarks were quoted in a Blaze Media story published later that day.
On April 13th, President Donald Trump fired the man who prosecuted Houck, Sanjay Patel.
The next day, the DOJ released a report which found that Patel and other Biden prosecutors colluded with the abortion industry in targeting pro-lifers, and sought grossly disparate and excessive sentences for peaceful pro-life activists engaged in acts of non-violent civil disobedience.
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