State: Abortion doctor found guilty

OCALA, -- One of Florida's best-known abortion doctors was convicted Thursday of trying to extort millions of dollars from Marion County by falsely accusing a county official of bomb threats and intimidation.

Dr. James Scott Pendergraft was found guilty of all charges against him -- conspiracy, attempted extortion and mail fraud. He faces up to 30 years in federal prison.

His adviser, Michael Spielvogel, was found guilty of the same charges, plus lying to the FBI and making false statements. He faces 40 years in federal prison.

Both men were released on their own recognizance, and Pendergraft's attorney promised to file a motion for acquittal within seven days. No sentencing date was immediately set.

"I will continue to fight back, but I will continue to serve women in their time of need," Pendergraft said after the verdict. "I'm getting ready to go back to work and help women."

Pendergraft, 43, owns clinics in Orlando, Ocala, Tampa and Fort Lauderdale. Corporate records list Pendergraft as the president of the corporation that owns the Women's Center of Hyde Park in Tampa. A spokeswoman at the clinic declined to comment Thursday.

Pendergraft's supporters said the prosecution was politically motivated by abortion opponents in the community. Prosecutors said the case was about extortion, not abortion.

"I'm disappointed in the justice system as far as saying that I'm guilty," said Pendergraft, who promised to keep his clinics open. "But I will continue to fight that, and in the interim, I will take care of women in their most difficult time."

Pendergraft's attorney said he would file a motion to acquit, citing prosecutorial misconduct by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Devereaux who told jurors that Pendergraft, who is black, was "shuckin' and jivin' " questions on the witness stand. Jacob Rose, Pendergraft's attorney, said the remark was racially offensive.

Jurors deliberated eight hours over two days before reaching their verdict in U.S. District Court. Neither Pendergraft nor Spielvogel showed any emotion when the verdicts were read.

During the three-week trial, the defendants were accused of lying in affidavits in an effort to extort a big settlement from Marion County in exchange for dropping a lawsuit. The lawsuit claimed the county and the city of Ocala weren't allowing off-duty police officers to moonlight at Pendergraft's clinic.

"When you break the law, hopefully you should get caught," said Lynda Bell, president of Florida Right to Life.

The government's case was based on three incidents in the months before and after Pendergraft opened his Ocala clinic in 1998:

Spielvogel alleged that County Commissioner Larry Cretul had told him in a telephone conversation that it wasn't a matter of "if" but "when" the Ocala clinic would be bombed. He also said Cretul had told him that what happened in Alabama is "nothing compared to what will happen in Ocala," a reference to the fatal bombing of a Birmingham clinic in 1998.

During the trial, Spielvogel admitted he made up the conversation, but he said other conversations with Cretul made him fear for his safety and the safety of others at the clinic. Spielvogel also said he staged a fake telephone conversation in front of Pendergraft to make the doctor think that Cretul had threatened him.

Spielvogel and Pendergraft filed affidavits in court describing the alleged threats by Cretul. The affidavits were attached to a lawsuit Pendergraft had filed seeking a buffer zone around the clinic.

Pendergraft, Spielvogel and Pendergraft's then-attorney, Roy Lucas, met with a Marion County attorney for a settlement talk on a separate lawsuit Pendergraft had filed to compel local law-enforcement agencies to allow their officers to work off-duty as guards at the clinic. At the meeting, Pendergraft threatened to bankrupt the county by seeking $100-million in damages and said a statue of him would be built in Ocala that would read: "Dr. Pendergraft brought freedom to Ocala."

His attorneys say the threat was rhetorical. The meeting was secretly taped by FBI agents who had been contacted by Cretul.

Defense attorneys told jurors that Pendergraft, as a lone defender of a woman's right to choose in a community hostile to abortions, was being persecuted by prosecutors with a political agenda. In addition, his attorneys said Pendergraft was misled by Spielvogel.

Abortion rights advocates think abortion opponents in the community were using the federal legal system to stop Pendergraft the way extremists have used firebombs and death threats in the past to stop other abortion providers.

"We can see how an innocent person can be convicted in a United States courtroom," said Dr. Sangeeta Pati, a spokeswoman for Right to Fight, a coalition of abortion rights groups supporting Pendergraft. "Abortion was an issue. Race was an issue."

Prosecutors countered that abortion has nothing to do with the charges against Pendergraft. They would not comment on the race allegation.

The fabrications Spielvogel told about Cretul are the same kind of lies that ruin lives like accusing a priest of molesting children or a judge of taking bribes, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Judy Hunt.

"I believe this jury's decision brought the truth out," Cretul said after the verdict.

Pendergraft, who grew up in North Carolina where his father was a mortician and his mother a nurse, was trained in caring for high-risk pregnancies at Tampa General Hospital.

A 1998 St. Petersburg Times article estimated he had performed 15,000 abortions. He told an interviewer that he was driven by the belief that every woman deserves access to a safe abortion. At the time, his staff had grown from to 40, including five other doctors.

"I have read the Bible. I go to church. I don't read in the Bible what (abortion protesters) read," Pendergraft said then. "I know morally what I am doing is right. If a woman doesn't want to be a mother, she shouldn't have to be."

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk