Pro-life protester Mark Houck has won a seven-figure settlement in his legal battle with the federal government after the Biden Department of Justice arrested him at gunpoint in front of his terrified wife and children.
The 40 Days for Life Institute of Law & Justice confirms Houck has now won his lawsuit after already being acquitted of the criminal charges he was facing.
Shawn Carney, President and CEO of 40 Days for Life, said in a video post, “Mark’s family has been awarded over a million dollars for what they went through in the ridiculous raid of his home.”
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As CBN News has reported, Houck was arrested in a pre-dawn FBI raid on his home. He woke up on September 23, 2022, to an incessant banging on his door. When he opened it, he saw more than 15 FBI agents crowded on his front porch and the front lawn with guns pointed at him.
He was charged by the Department of Justice with counts of violating the FACE Act after he pushed back against a pro-abortion volunteer who had been harassing his young son outside an abortion clinic in Philadelphia.
At the time, a Thomas More Society attorney said, “The Biden Department of Justice’s pattern of arresting and prosecuting peaceful pro-life advocates is disturbing.” A jury would soon agree.
After less than an hour of deliberations by the jury, Houck was acquitted on all charges in January 2023. If the Biden Administration had won its case, Houck would have faced up to 11 years in prison and a $350,000 fine.
Houck and his wife Ryan-Marie have said they believe they were targeted by the Biden DOJ to intimidate, silence, and scare the family for their pro-life work—praying outside abortion clinics for the women headed inside to abort their unborn babies.
The Houcks sued the Department of Justice in 2023 seeking $1.1 million in damages for malicious prosecution, retaliatory prosecution, false arrest, abuse of process, and assault.
They accused the DOJ of a “faulty” investigation that led to an excessively forceful arrest and “malicious and retaliatory prosecution” that severely impacted his wife and seven children. His wife suffered 3 miscarriages in the stressful aftermath of the arrest and ongoing prosecution.
*** Pro-Life Activist Mark Houck, Wife Sue DOJ, Reveal 3 Miscarriages Since ‘Malicious’ FBI Raid
“We got so much persecution from the DOJ under Biden and President Trump has corrected that,” Shawn Carney said recently. “I can tell you that personally, from what we’ve seen at 40 Days for Life it has been absolutely night and day. Under Biden, at one point we were getting 1-to-2 inquiries from the FBI per week at different 40 Days for Life locations. This is absolutely ridiculous, and that has stopped.”
He says pro-lifers no longer have to be afraid to go out and protest and pray peacefully to end abortion, calling it a “huge victory for free speech.”
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