After years of investigations, license suspensions, and even jail time, abortionist Steven Chase Brigham is once again under fire for questionable practices in his chain of abortion mills. The Pennsylvania Department of Health announced July 7 that his abortion clinics must shut down for repeated use of unlicensed medical staff, while the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) claimed he failed to file payroll taxes from 2002-06, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Since at least 1989, Brigham has been the subject of investigations for botched abortions and other violations in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida, and California. He served time in jail in 2000 for failing to file tax returns.

The Inquirer reported that Brigham continues to expand his abortion business even in the face of his legal problems. "Over the years, he has created at least 20 corporate entities--some with names such as Peaceful Corp., Goodness Inc., and Kindness Corp.--and added clinics in Virginia and Maryland," according to the Inquirer.

The four clinics Brigham owns in Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie, and State College, Pennsylvania, have now been closed by the state health department. Previously, in 1997 and 2004, the department had investigated Brigham for employing unlicensed health care workers but excused him after he promised to stringently verify medical credentials.

However, the department discovered that in 2008 Brigham employed a unlicensed woman to work as a nurse in his Pittsburgh clinic. Since after the previous violations Brigham was told that "any further slip-ups would be grounds for barring him from having abortion facilities 'directly or indirectly' in the state," according to the Inquirer, the health department shut down his abortion business in Pennsylvania.

In addition to the health department order, the IRS sent Brigham notice in April that he owes $234,536 for unpaid payroll taxes, the Inquirer reported. He previously served a 120-day sentence in 2003 for failing to pay corporate taxes. "We have made a demand for payment of this liability, but it remains unpaid," the IRS wrote, according to the Inquirer.

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