Friar charged with blocking Planned Parenthood in Hempstead

By Robert Brodskyrobert.brodsky@newsday.com @BrodskyRobertUpdated September 29, 2022

A friar from the Bronx was charged in federal court Thursday with blocking access to a Planned Parenthood health center in Hempstead — only months after he was arrested in a similar incident in Westchester County.

Christopher Moscinski, also known as Friar Fidelis Moscinski, 52, a member of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, is charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Central Islip.

“The defendant attempted to prevent women from accessing their legal right to vital reproductive and pregnancy services," said Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “This office will enforce federal law to protect clinics and staff that provide reproductive health services while safeguarding the rights of their patients."

The FACE Act prohibits individuals from threatening, intimidating or interfering with the public's right to seek, obtain or provide reproductive health services. While first-time convictions of the FACE Act are misdemeanors, punishable by up to a year in prison, subsequent convictions are a felony.

Moscinski’s attorney, Charles Millioen of Federal Defenders of New York in Central Islip, did not respond to a request for comment.

During the morning of July 7, Moscinski arrived at the Planned Parenthood on Fulton Avenue in civilian clothes and fastened five padlocks or bicycle locks to the gated entrance of the health center, prosecutors said. Witnesses reported that some of the locks appeared to have glue poured into them, authorities said.

He returned to the health center moments later in a religious robe — Franciscans are among the mendicant Christian religious orders whose members stress poverty and charity — and laid his body in front of the building's gate, blocking vehicles from entering, prosecutors said.

He was arrested by Hempstead Village Police, charged with disorderly conduct and given a desk appearance ticket.

“The defendant made repeated attempts to disrupt and deny access to a Planned Parenthood facility in violation of the FACE Act," said Michael Driscoll, assistant director-in-charge of the FBI New York Field Office. "These attempts interfered with the community’s ability to seek reproductive and pregnancy health services."

Following the July incident, nearly 50 abortion rights supporters rallied outside the clinic.

“Over the years, we have witnessed anti-abortion extremists spew lies and use physical force to threaten our staff, bully our volunteers, and demoralize our patients," said Samuel Mitchell, chief operating officer of Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, in a statement on Thursday. "Planned Parenthood of Greater New York will not be intimidated by Christopher Moscinski or any individual who attempts to prevent our patients from accessing the care they need."

In a YouTube interview with an anti-abortion group days after his arrest in Hempstead, Moscinski said, "the main motivation was to try to keep that Planned Parenthood closed for as long as possible so that I would have an opportunity to talk to the mothers who were coming in that morning."

The incident came nearly two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the question of legalized abortion to the states. While abortion remains legal in New York, some Republican leaders have said they want to make it illegal nationwide.

In March, Moscinski and two other men — all affiliated with Red Rose Rescue, an anti-abortion religious group — were found guilty of criminal trespass when they entered All Women’s Medic, a private medical office in White Plains, and refused to leave. Moscinski is currently serving a 90-day sentence.

Records show Moscinski has been arrested several times in recent years in New York and New Jersey in similar incidents, including refusing to leave a health care facility in Manhasset in 2021.