THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 16, 1996 TAG: 9605160382
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: NEWPORT NEWS DAILY PRESS
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
An anti-abortion activist will plead guilty in federal court today to conspiring to commit arson at women's health clinics in Newport News and Norfolk, according to the defendant's attorney.
Clark Ryan Martin, a 24-year-old political science student at Old Dominion University, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Newport News in March on charges of conspiracy, two counts of arson and two counts of using fire to commit a felony.
In a plea agreement arranged this week, prosecutors promised to drop the latter four charges if Martin pleads guilty to conspiracy and agrees to testify against other anti-abortion activists believed to be involved in abortion clinic violence, according to Martin's attorney, Richard Brydges.
Martin faces one to five years in prison with no parole for the conspiracy charge, according to federal sentencing guidelines. He is scheduled to enter the guilty plea this afternoon at U.S. District Court in Norfolk.
The conspiracy charge accuses Martin of supplying a traffic flare to another anti-abortion activist - Jennifer Patterson Sperle, 23, of Wichita, Kan. - who used it to start a small fire at the Peninsula Medical Center for Women on Jefferson Avenue in December 1994, according to the indictment.
The indictment states that about a year after Sperle set another small fire at the Tidewater Women's Health Center in Norfolk in March 1995, Martin offered to help destroy an abortion clinic. The indictment did not specify the name or location of the clinic.
Martin and Sperle originally pleaded innocent to all five charges and were scheduled to face a jury trial together in U.S. District Court in Newport News next month.
Sperle's case is still scheduled to go to trial on June 11, according to her attorney, Walter B. Dalton.
Brydges said he pursued the plea agreement to prevent Martin from going to trial, where - if convicted of all five counts - he could have faced up to 20 years in prison for each arson, and a $250,000 fine.
``My experience is, you don't try a case if you have an alternative,'' Brydges said. ``You can't stand on ceremony and protocol at this point and wait for someone to knock your door down.''
Martin declined comment Wednesday.
Dalton said he would not be surprised if Martin is asked to testify against Sperle, who participated with Martin at several anti-abortion protests in Hampton Roads before she moved from Norfolk to Kansas last year.
The Rev. Donald Spitz, a Chesapeake minister who has organized many of the anti-abortion protests in southeastern Virginia during the past several years, said Martin should not testify against other activists.
``Anybody that testifies against their brothers and sisters to the authorities is no different than Judas Iscariot,'' said Spitz, referring to the disciple who betrayed Christ.
``As far as I'm concerned, they can go out and do what Judas did,'' Spitz said, ``which is hang themselves.''
KEYWORDS: ANTI-ABORTION GUILTY PLEA ARSON FELONY by CNB