A San Jose woman named Sandra Susan Merritt was one of two anti-abortion activists California prosecutors charged on Tuesday for making undercover videos of themselves trying to buy fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood. Related Articles San Jose woman faces charges over secret Planned Parenthood video

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Merritt, along with David Daleiden, faces 15 felonies for invading the privacy of medical providers by filming without consent.

The announcement this week comes eight months after similar charges were dropped in Texas against the pair, who work with an Irvine-based anti-abortion group called the Center for Medical Progress.

The case was spearheaded by State Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a longtime Congressional Democrat who took over the investigation in January. In a statement, he said California “will not tolerate the criminal recording of conversations.” Each of the defendants is charged with 14 counts, one for each of the 14 people who were filmed without their permission between October 2013 and July 2015 in Los Angeles, San Francisco and El Dorado counties. The 15th count is for criminal conspiracy to invade privacy.

Merritt was not immediately available for comment and a spokesman for the Center referred calls to the group’s attorney, former LA District Attorney Steve Cooley, who ran unsuccessfully for California attorney general against Kamala Harris, now a US Senator.

Here are few things we know about Merritt, gathered from news reports and public records:

California records show that Merritt lives in San Jose, has operated a tutoring business and has held a cosmetology license since 1982. Texas records show she was born in April 1953 which makes her 63 years old. When she first turned herself in to authorities in Texas in February 2016, she did not comment but posted bond, which was reduced from $10,000 to $2,000. At the time, her attorney Dan Cogdell, said this about the prosecution: “The indictment is wrong-headed. I don’t care if you’re pro-life. I don’t care if you’re pro-choice. This case is dumber than a bucket of hair.” At the time, Harris County prosecutor Britni Cooper said Merritt could settle the case through pretrial diversion, which is a form of probation typically offered to nonviolent first-time offenders. If Merritt maintains a clean record while on probation then the charge could be dismissed, Cooper said. “We felt like it was the right thing to do,” Cooper said, adding that Merritt had not indicated whether she’d accept the offer. Records indicate she owns a home in South San Jose. Last summer, a judge in LA declined to remove Merritt as a defendant in a lawsuit related to the videos, refusing to accept her claim that she was working for the anti-abortion group as a journalist at the time the videos were made and therefore enjoyed First Amendment protections. “”I think they’re in this together,” said Judge Rafael Ongkeko. “Given the current facts, Ms. Merritt cannot carve herself out of this case.” Her lawyer, Charles LiMandri, said at the time that since 2013, Merritt has assisted the center in an investigative journalism project called “Human Capital.” As a result of the project, he added, congressional committees and more than a dozen states have begun investigations into the illegal harvesting of fetal tissue, fetal body parts and whole fetal body parts, all for profit. LiMandri also said in court papers that the center at times would ask Merritt to pose as “Susan Tannenbaum” in interactions with people in the fetal tissue procurement industry. In the Texas case, Merritt was represented by the Liberty Counsel, an Orlando-based pro-life legal group that describes its mission as “restoring the Culture by Advancing Religious Freedom, the Sanctity of Human Life and the Family.’

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