THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 23, 1996 TAG: 9602230431
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOE JACKSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
At least four local abortion opponents have been ordered to appear before a federal grand jury that apparently will investigate anti-abortion activities in Hampton Roads.
Local abortion opponents said Thursday they think the probe is an outgrowth of a 16-month grand jury investigation in Alexandria into abortion clinic violence. That investigation ended last month with no evidence of a national conspiracy to target clinics.
``The whole point is to try to prove a local conspiracy,'' said Donald Spitz, head of the Chesapeake-based Pro-Life Virginia. The four subpoenaed before the grand jury are all members of Spitz's group and of Life Ministries, a companion group headed by David Crane of Norfolk.
``It's a witch hunt,'' Spitz said. ``They dragged everyone under the sun in to testify in Alexandria but couldn't prove a conspiracy . . . so, now they'll try again. It's not right.''
Spitz and Crane were among 30 people who signed a petition declaring that violence against clinic personnel is justified as a ``defensive action'' to protect the unborn. In December 1994, Crane was also picketing Norfolk's Hillcrest clinic minutes before John C. Salvi III allegedly fired into the building. Salvi had driven to Norfolk after allegedly killing two clinic workers in Massachusetts.
Both Spitz and Crane testified before the Alexandria probe, they said. ``My thought is that some questions were raised at the national grand jury that federal authorities wanted to pursue on the local level,'' Crane said.
Neither Crane nor Spitz had heard Thursday whether similar investigations were being launched elsewhere in the nation. Spitz and Crane said they had not yet been subpoenaed but believed they would be.
One of those subpoenaed was Rae Powell, a Norfolk woman belonging to Life Ministries, Spitz said. The other three did not want to be identified.
Powell was told in her subpoena to appear in Newport News federal court on Feb. 28. She was to bring any copies she had of an underground manual, known as the Army of God Manual, the subpoena said.
Authorities have called the manual a handbook for anti-abortion radicals filled with detailed accounts of how to disrupt activities at abortion clinics.
In 1993, authorities dug up a 125-page document in the back yard of an Oregon woman convicted of trying to kill a Wichita physician. The manual contained details ranging from how to get and use butyric acid - a liquid with a vomit-like odor that has closed clinics for days - to how to make and detonate bombs.
``We, the remnant of God-fearing men and women of the United States of Amerika, do officially declare war on the entire child killing industry,'' the manual says. ``Our Most Dread Sovereign Lord God requires that whosoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.''
Spitz said Thursday he had seen the manual, but would not comment on whether it had been circulated locally.
``It was an underground anti-abortion manual which showed how to blow up abortion clinics and how to burn abortion clinics and that type of thing,'' he said. ``But it wasn't illegal. It is no more than what you can find at gun shows on how to blow things up. The only difference was that it was written for anti-abortionists.''
Powell's subpoena also told her to bring any correspondence from people convicted of abortion clinic violence and to bring correspondence from Jennifer Patterson Sperle, a former Norfolk resident who moved to Wichita, Kan., after Salvi was arrested in Norfolk.
``My guess is that the government is subpoenaing anybody whose name is on phone records to Jennifer Sperle,'' Crane said.
Sperle, a former member of Crane's group, was a ``sidewalk counselor'' who protested weekly at Hillcrest, Crane said. ``She was very effective. She had many women take literature from her. She had an abortion eight years ago and would tell them of her experiences.''
Crane described Sperle as a mother of three in her late 20s. He did not think she was involved in distributing the manual. She was involved in about six sit-ins at Hillcrest and was charged with trespassing, as were other protesters, Crane said.
``Her involvement in our group was peaceful,'' Crane said.
On Thursday, Sperle told The Associated Press that she was active in anti-abortion protests in Virginia for six years. She said she once allowed a former security guard for abortion doctors to stay in her home. The former guard claimed he had ``seen the light,'' she said, but she now believes he was an FBI informant.
``It makes me mad,'' she said. ``It doesn't worry me a bit, but it makes me so mad. The people doing the investigation, most of them are a bunch of pagans, anyway.''
MEMO: The Associated Press contributed to this report.
ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Donald Spitz, left, of Pro-Life Virginia and David Crane of Life
Ministries have been before a similar jury in Alexandria. They
haven't been sought by the Norfolk panel.
by CNB