ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 27, 1996 TAG: 9603270045
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
MEMO: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.
Two abortion-rights opponents were indicted Tuesday on federal conspiracy and arson charges stemming from fires at abortion clinics in Newport News and Norfolk.
The indictments of Jennifer Patterson Sperle of Wichita, Kan., and Clark Ryan Martin of Norfolk stemmed from a federal grand jury probe that began Feb. 28.
The investigation in Newport News began after a 16-month national inquiry into abortion clinic violence by another federal grand jury in Alexandria ended in January with no indictments.
``The good news here is that they got two indictments, which indicates that the Justice Department didn't just abandon its abortion violence investigation as some anti-abortionists had mistakenly claimed in January,'' said Eleanor Smeal, head of the Feminist Majority Foundation in Arlington.
``It's encouraging that they could bring a conspiracy charge, because some anti-abortionists have been saying there is no conspiracy,'' she said.
The five-count indictment accused Sperle and Martin of conspiring to set fires at two abortion clinics and then carrying out the plan.
Sperle lived in Norfolk at the time of the fires in December 1994 at the Peninsula Medical Center for Women in Newport News and March 1995 at the Tidewater Women's Health Center in Norfolk. Neither fire caused extensive damage.
The Justice Department said Sperle was arrested Tuesday in Wichita.
Prosecutors said Martin's attorney, David Daulton, told them Martin would surrender to authorities. Daulton did not immediately return a reporter's telephone call.
If convicted on the arson charges, Sperle and Martin could face up to 20 years in prison for each fire and a $250,000 fine. Conviction on the conspiracy charge could add five years to the sentences.
The indictment alleged that Sperle, Martin and unidentified co-conspirators used roadside flares and lighter fluid dropped through a mail slot to damage the Newport News clinic.
At the Norfolk clinic, the indictment said, they ignited kerosene after breaking a window.
The indictment said Sperle also tried to show others how to destroy clinics, including providing an underground manual that describes ``various violent techniques'' for such activities.
LENGTH: Medium: 52 linesby CNB