Lawyer for Pro-Life Protester Arrested by FBI Says Client Offered to Surrender, Claims DOJ Trying to ‘Intimidate People of Faith’

The lawyer representing pro-life protester, author, and father of seven Mark Houck, who was arrested after FBI agents stormed his house this weekend, said Houck is “innocent,” and accused the Department of Justice of targeting him “solely to intimidate people of faith and prolife Americans.”

“Rather than accepting Mark Houck’s offer to appear voluntarily, the Biden Department of Justice chose to make an unnecessary show of potentially deadly force, sending twenty heavily armed federal agents to the Houck residence at dawn this past Friday,” said the attorney representing Houck, Thomas More Society Vice President and Senior Counsel Peter Breen.

“In threatening form, after nearly breaking down the family’s front door, at least five agents pointed guns at Mark’s head and arrested him in front of his wife and seven young children who were terrified that their husband and father would be shot dead before their eyes,” Breen added.

Houck’s wife, Ryan-Marie, told Catholic News Agency that a “SWAT team of about 25 came to my house with about 15 vehicles and started pounding on our door” on Friday to arrest her husband after he allegedly physically assaulted a 72-year-old Planned Parenthood clinic escort in October 2021.

A spokesman for the FBI Philadelphia field office told Fox News that no SWAT operators were used in Houck’s arrest and denied that agents pointed their guns at Houck or his family members, though he conceded that their weapons were drawn when they knocked on Houck’s door.

Houck was arrested in front of his “screaming children” for alleged violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which prohibits interfering with anyone trying to access an abortion clinic.

According to his wife, Houck drives hours to Philadelphia every Wednesday to speak outside of abortion clinics for six to eight hours at a time. Houck pushed a pro-abortion man, identified as “B.L.” away from his 12-year-old son after the man entered “the son’s personal space” and didn’t stop hurling “crude… inappropriate and disgusting” comments at the family.

The DOJ argued in a press release that “B.L.” was a “volunteer escort at the reproductive health care clinic” and consequently, Houck violated the FACE Act by pushing him.

In June, lawyers from the Thomas More Society released a statement on behalf of Houck, asserting that the FACE Act “does not cover one-on-one altercations like the one involving Houck,” and that he would “appear voluntarily” if charges were brought against him.

Despite Houck’s promise to appear voluntarily, his case was investigated by the FBI Philadelphia Field Office, according to the DOJ.

Houck appears in court Tuesday at 1:30 p.m., and faces “a maximum of 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release and fines of up to $350,000,” the DOJ said, adding that Trial Attorney Sanjay Patel of the Civil Rights Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Anita Eve for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania are prosecuting the case.

“This case is being brought solely to intimidate people of faith and prolife Americans,” said Breen. “Mark Houck is innocent of these lawless charges, and we intend to prove that in court.”

Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) wrote a letter to attorney general Merrick Garland on Monday demanding answers about Houck’s case, saying, “using this kind of force to make an arrest for a single charge of simple assault is unprecedented.”

Hawley gave Garland ten days to explain why such overwhelming force was employed in Houck’s case and asked the attorney general “how many charges has your department brought against pro-abortion extremists who have attacked pregnancy resource centers, churches, and pro-life Americans?” since the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was leaked to the press in May.