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Abortionist
Gosnell Asks for Public Defender; Judge Tells Him to
Have Attorney by Wednesday Part Two of Four By Dave Andrusko We are keeping track daily of abortionist Kermit Gosnell, charged with eight murders in the death of one woman, who died of a drug overdose at Gosnell's Women's Medical Society, and seven babies born alive whom a Philadelphia Grand Jury accuses Gosnell and his staff of killing using surgical scissors to cut their spinal cords . (For excerpts of the Grand Jury's 261- page report, see here). Let me set the table for today's update with two revealing quotes: "Gosnell was in
court Friday in Philadelphia for a hearing, where he
asked for a public defender. That request was denied by
the court. …Prosecutors also disclosed after the hearing
that they could have charged Gosnell with a 'hundred
murders.'"
Farr's story is an attempt to track the financial trail of a man whom the Grand Jury said made an immense amount of money--$1.8 million annually, just on abortions. (And "That figure does not account for any of the money he took in from allegedly selling illegal prescriptions to drug addicts in his community, including his notable distinction of being one of the top three prescribers of OxyContin in Pennsylvania, something federal authorities continue to investigate," Farr wrote.) Farr lists a variety of information sources--the grand jury report, a spokeswoman from the state Department of Revenue, a spokesman for the city controller's office, and a federal IRS lien filed in Philadelphia in 2008 –in an attempt to work backwards to calculate what Gosnell may have taken in and what he avoided paying taxes on. But it's all largely unaccounted for at this point. What Farr can document is, in addition to the $948.000 shore house (with a "stunning view overlooking Somers Bay" near Atlantic City), a series of other properties (Gosnell and his wife "own as many as 17 properties, according to published reports"); various vehicles; a boat; and $240,000 in cash when police searched his three-story brick home. There is this personal lifestyle, and then there is the condition of his West Philadelphia abortion clinic where his almost exclusively Black and exclusively poor clientele came to have their abortions. "Gosnell's assets stand in stark contrast to the bargain-basement conditions at his West Philadelphia clinic, where blood caked the floor, fetuses filled the freezers and rusted, infected equipment spread venereal diseases, according to the grand jury's report," Farr writes. "The doctor spent little of his money on the clinic, and hired unqualified staffers so that he could pay them meager wages, often in cash, grand jurors said. He also 'insisted' on reusing plastic instruments that were supposed to be used only once, the grand jury said.' He didn't even spend money on robes for his patients, who instead were covered with bloodstained blankets, the report said." The money issues are, of course, secondary, but they provide a backdrop and a context to Gosnell's many alleged crimes. When he used a press conference last month to announce the charges, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said, "A doctor who knowingly and systematically mistreats female patients, to the point that one of them dies in his so-called care, commits murder under the law. A doctor who cuts into the necks severing the spinal cords of living, breathing babies, who would survive with proper medical attention, is committing murder under the law." |
"How
many severed baby spines does it take to pay for a
$984,000 shore house? How many severed infant feet is a
boat worth?"