The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division announced that on Tuesday, January 30, 2024, a federal jury convicted six people on federal civil rights offenses under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act).
The defendants are accused of blocking an abortion clinic entrance in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, on March 5, 2021. Each defendant was charged with a felony conspiracy against rights and a FACE Act offense.
According to evidence presented at the trial, Chester Gallagher, Heather Idoni, Calvin Zastrow, Coleman Boyd, Paul Vaughn, and Dennis Green engaged in a conspiracy to prevent clinic employees from providing and patients from receiving reproductive health services, a civil right secured by the FACE Act.
Idoni, Zastrow, Boyd, and Green traveled to Tennessee from other states to participate in the clinic blockade, and Gallagher and Vaughn stalled the Mount Juliet Police Department through negotiations that Gallagher referred to as a delay tactic. Evidence at the trial further proved that the defendants violated the FACE Act by using physical obstruction to interfere with the clinic’s employees and a patient because the clinic was providing reproductive health services and the patient sought reproductive health services.