Man charged for online violent threats against company over Planned Parenthood fetal tissue

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

A Washington man who allegedly threatened executives of a California biotech company that processed fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood faces prosecution in one of the rarest sorts of criminal cases – for violence threatened online.

The indictment stated that Scott A Orton, 57, had a record of online menacing of local journalists, city council members, fellow commenters and even FBI agents, dating back to at least 2009.

The rare prosecution comes in the wake of a mass shooting in a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic. Orton was arrested by federal agents in December for making an interstate threat to kill an executive of StemExpress.

The California firm was thrust into the spotlight when anti-abortion activists attacked the company’s fetal tissue procurement practices and released highly edited, secretly filmed videos from inside Planned Parenthood. Orton’s alleged comments threatened to hang a StemExpress executive with piano wire, on the Fox News website.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/17/planned-parenthood-online-violent-threats-stemexpress-fetal-tissue

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Jessica Glenza in New York
Thursday 17 December 2015 13.00 GMT

[riversedge]

1. "The comments offered cash to kill an unnamed company executive."

More and more violence. And I fear there will be more attacks on PP once the Congress starts up their investigations again.


.....Two legal, registered guns were seized from Orton’s home just days before three people were killed and nine injured by a shooter at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic.

“Stop the death of innocents. Kill the killers,” Orton allegedly wrote in July, in a string of violent comments below a story on undercover Planned Parenthood videos. The comments offered cash to kill an unnamed company executive. “The [officer] of StemExpress is a death profiteer. The [officer] of StemExpress should be hung by the neck using piano wire and propped up on the lawn in front of the building with a note attached.”

Orton’s comments on the website appear eerily similar to those of Robert Lewis Dear, who is accused of having shot and killed three people at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood affiliate on 27 November. In his first public statements, Dear yelled out in court to “protect babies”, and “Kill the babies – that’s what Planned Parenthood does.” “JoseyWhales,” allegedly Orton’s nom de plum, presumably refers to the 1976 Clint Eastwood movie The Outlaw Josey Wales, whose plot focuses on a man who joins a Confederate guerrilla army during the civil war.

The comments came to the attention of NAF, and the organization reported the comments to the FBI, which launched an investigation. NAF considers the outbreak of violent speech so serious it contracted a security firm to monitor online threats 24 hours a day. ..................

[mgmaggiemg]

2. is this the guy who bombed pullman wa pp?

cheers, Maggie

[riversedge]

3. CNN Leaves Anti-Choice Domestic Terrorism Out Of GOP’s National Security Debate

NationofChange ?@NationofChange 2m2 minutes ago

CNN Leaves Anti-Choice Domestic Terrorism Out Of GOP’s National Security Debate http://ow.ly/W2nZF #CNN #RepublicanDebate
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http://www.nationofchange.org/news/2015/12/17/cnn-leaves-anti-choice-domestic-terrorism-out-of-gops-national-security-debate/?platform=hootsuite

CNN Leaves Anti-Choice Domestic Terrorism Out Of GOP’s National Security Debate
By Julie Alderman -


CNN moderators failed to ask candidates about the Planned Parenthood shootings, which have been linked to GOP anti-abortion rhetoric.


During the final Republican presidential primary debate of 2015, which was focused on national security and terrorism, CNN moderators failed to ask the Republican presidential primary candidates about the deadly shooting attack at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood, which has been linked by many in the media to heated anti-Planned Parenthood rhetoric from the GOP.
Fifth Republican Primary Debate Focused On National Security And Terrorism

CNN Hosts Final GOP Primary Debate Of 2015 CNN, Focusing On National Security And Terrorism. The December 15 Republican primary debate hosted by CNN “was dominated by national security and terrorism in the aftermath of the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California.” [CNN.com, 12/16/15]
CNN Moderators Neglected To Ask The Candidates About The Recent Attack On A Colorado Planned Parenthood Clinic

CNN Moderators Did Not Ask About The Deadly Shooting Attack At A Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood. During CNN’s debate “focusing in on the most important job of any president, keeping America safe,” moderators Wolf Blitzer, Dana Bash, and Hugh Hewitt neglected to ask any of the candidates about the deadly November 27 mass shooting at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic that killed three people and injured nine. [CNN.com, 12/16/15; The Washington Post, 12/15/15; USA Today, 11/27/15].........................

[Initech]

4. This is getting really scary.

[Gore1FL]

5. They should arrest Joshua Feuerstein for his calls for violence prior to the CO Springs assault. n/

[Judi Lynn]

6. Orton feels especially vicious about what's none of his business.

Click for mugshot.
[center]http://www.hcsheriff.gov/cor/mugview/image.php?ID=507303

Scott A. Orton

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