A pro-life activist whose 2022 arrest by the FBI under the Biden administration drew national headlines has reached a seven-figure settlement after suing the Justice Department over his arrest and prosecution.
Mark Houck filed a lawsuit against the department in 2023 seeking restitution for what he called “a faulty investigation” and “excessive force” after a SWAT team of around 25 people arrested him in front of his children at his home on Sept. 23, 2022, allegedly with guns drawn.
The shocking details of his arrest spurred criticism from conservatives that the Justice Department under then-President Joe Biden was targeting pro-life activists.
After a three-year legal battle, 40 Days for Life President Shawn Carney announced April 9 that Houck had reached a settlement with the Department of Justice under President Donald Trump and had been awarded more than $1 million.
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Steve Crampton, one of Houck’s attorneys at the Thomas More Society, told Fox News Digital that the outcome was long overdue and they were pleased with the Trump administration’s efforts to bring forth justice in the case.
“We are very pleased with a Department of Justice that seems to be genuinely interested in doing justice,” Crampton said. “That’s rare enough these days, and we look forward to Mark not being the only wrongfully accused defendant to receive some kind of remuneration and recognition for the wrongs that were done to him.”
Crampton said the Trump administration should be commended for “attempting to at least acknowledge, if not completely right, the wrongs that were done” to pro-life activists under the Biden administration.
Houck had been praying outside a Philadelphia Planned Parenthood clinic in 2021 when a Planned Parenthood volunteer allegedly harassed his son. Houck was accused of pushing the volunteer during the encounter, and federal prosecutors charged him months later with allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act.
The act makes it a federal crime to “use or threat of force and physical obstruction that injures, intimidates, or interferes with a person seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services.”
Houck was later acquitted by a Philadelphia jury, but could have faced up to 11 years in prison if convicted.
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Houck later sued the Justice Department over the ordeal, accusing law enforcement personnel of conducting a “faulty investigation” against him, and accusing law enforcement of using “excessive force” in the FBI raid on his family home.
Last year, Houck said told Fox News Digital that an “activist judge” had blocked negotiations between Houck and the Trump-led Justice Department.
The legal settlement comes amid a report released Tuesday by the Justice Department alleging the Biden administration selectively prosecuted pro-life activists under the FACE Act, following a review of more than 700,000 internal records.
DOJ officials said prosecutors coordinated with abortion-rights groups to track activists, sought harsher sentences for pro-life defendants and, in some cases, withheld evidence or tried to exclude jurors based on religion.
The report found officials under the Biden administration worked closely with groups, including Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Federation and the Feminist Majority Foundation, which the department said helped compile information on pro-life activists used in investigations and prosecutions.
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“The Biden DOJ prosecutors knowingly withheld evidence that defense counsel requested to prepare an affirmative defense,” according to the report.
Department of Justice Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche commented on the prosecutions and Houck case in a statement to Fox News Digital: “This Department will not tolerate a two-tiered system of justice. No Department should conduct selective prosecution based on beliefs. The weaponization that happened under the Biden Administration will not happen again, as we restore integrity to our prosecutorial system.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Biden’s office for comment.
Fox News’ Peter Pinedo and Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.
