PHILADELPHIA – A woman who pleaded guilty to charges stemming from her work at a corrupt, grimy Philadelphia abortion clinic is going home after being imprisoned for 28 months.
Adrienne Moton, 36, had pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and other charges. The clinic’s owner, Dr. Kermit Gosnell, was convicted this month of first-degree murder in the deaths of three babies born alive.
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Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner said Wednesday that he’s sending Moton home and she has shown remorse for her crimes.
In an emotionally wrought statement, Moton told the court she thought she was helping women but never thought about the babies at Gosnell’s clinic. Former employees have testified that Gosnell routinely performed illegal abortions past Pennsylvania’s 24-week limit; delivered babies who were still moving, whimpering or breathing; and dispatched the newborns by “snipping” their spines, as he referred to it.
Two other women former employees, Sherry West, 53, and Tina Baldwin, 47, had their sentencing postponed because both still have unresolved federal drug charges pending.
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West was convicted of third-degree murder. Baldwin pleaded guilty to racketeering, conspiracy, and corrupting a minor – her daughter, who also worked at Gosnell’s clinic. West and Baldwin are now scheduled to be sentenced June 24.
The case became a flashpoint in the nation’s polarized abortion debate. Foes said it exposed the true nature of abortion in all its disturbing detail. Abortion rights activists warned that Gosnell’s practice foreshadows what women could face if abortion is driven underground with more restrictive laws.
Also scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday was Gosnell’s wife, Pearl, 51, who has spent two years on house arrest and could be sent to prison for racketeering and performing an illegal abortion. She feels she’s left “holding the bag” after her husband shamed the family, turned down a plea deal that would have kept her out of prison, and refused to speak at his trial, her lawyer said Tuesday.
Many of the Gosnell co-defendants have already been in prison for more than two years, since a 2011 grand jury report lifted the veil on what prosecutors have called a “house of horrors.”
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