Even after a St. Louis grand jury refused to indict po-life activist John Patrick Ryan, 65, even after he passed a polygraph, St. Louis’s now notorious Circuit Court Attorney Kim Gardner decided to put Ryan on trial for a misdemeanor charge of making a terroristic threat.
It did not turn out well for Gardner. On Wednesday, after a three-day trial, the jury deliberated just one hour before declaring Ryan “not guilty.”
While peacefully protesting outside a St. Louis clinic as he had done for years, the pro-life veteran Ryan allegedly added a wrinkle to his repertoire by telling a Planned Parenthood worker that seven bombs had been planted inside the clinic. The date was December 31, 2016. Police arrested Ryan on the spot and held him throughout New Year’s Day until he was freed on bond.
“This deprivation of his free speech rights was based on bogus allegations by Planned Parenthood that were then advanced by Prosecutor Kim Gardner’s office,” said Brad Blake, Special Counsel for the Thomas More Society. “Prosecutor Kim Gardner’s goal was not justice, but rather persecution.”
According to Ryan, Alderwomen Megan Green and Christine Ingrassia used his alleged threat as justification for a buffer zone ordinance to suppress the pro-life message.
“It is obvious that Planned Parenthood needed a scapegoat in order to provide an excuse to enact a buffer zone, so they set up John Ryan to take the fall,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “Planned Parenthood was obviously in cahoots with a corrupt prosecutor, or this case would have been dismissed long ago.”
Newman’s accusation takes on added weight given Gardner’s recent notoriety. Her indisputable botch of the case she brought against Gov. Eric Greitens raised serious questions about her objectivity and even her fitness for office.
Said Newman, “We hope Mr. Ryan considers suing the City of St. Louis, Planned Parenthood, and its employee who lied about him in the first place and denied him his rights and freedom, and nearly destroyed his good reputation. This corruption and injustice must not be allowed to stand.”