Oregon man accused of threatening abortion clinic
Thursday, November 12, 2009 10:53 AM PST
EUGENE (AP) — A Eugene man accused of threatening to blow up a Planned Parenthood clinic has been charged in the case, authorities said. Gregory Paul Freeman, 56, was charged Monday with using a telephone on Dec. 30 to threaten to damage or destroy the Planned Parenthood clinic on the outskirts of Eugene.
‘’Uh, please go ahead and dial the, uh, United States of America, because I’m going to burn your abortion clinic down because you are a baby killer and you hate babies,’’ Freeman is alleged to have said in the call.
The federal charge filed by the U.S. Attorney’s office in a complaint follows a Eugene police investigation into a series of threatening phone calls last year to the clinic and other places and people. An affidavit filed by the FBI to support an arrest warrant said that former University of Oregon President David Frohnmayer received one of the threats before he retired, along with a Masonic Lodge and a local doctor.
Freeman has not been charged with making any of those calls.
Court records showed his attorney is Craig Weinerman of the Federal Public Defender’s office in Eugene. The office was closed Wednesday for the Veteran’s Day holiday and a message was not returned.
A spokesman for the FBI and a Eugene police spokeswoman said Wednesday they had no information available during the holiday and could not comment.
Eugene police began investigating on Oct. 1, 2008, when an officer stopped by the home of David and Lynn Frohnmayer to listen to an anti-Semitic threat left on their phone, according to court documents.
David Frohnmayer, 69, is a familiar figure in Oregon politics and public service. The former state lawmaker was attorney general from 1981 to 1991 and served as University of Oregon School of Law dean before taking over as the university’s 15th president in July 1994. He announced his retirement last spring.
Police checked phone records and found that the October 2008 threat left on the Frohnmayers’ answering machine — along with three similar threats — were placed with a prepaid wireless card.
In late November 2008, Eugene police responded to another report of anti-Semitic phone harassment at Eugene’s Masonic Lodge 11. Police believed calls to the Frohnmayer residence and the Masonic Lodge were placed by the same man, and they traced the calls to a local phone number.
A police officer placed a call to the number on Dec. 2, and a returned voicemail message left the next day said not to call back again.
‘’And in the meantime, you go down and blow up an abortion clinic,’’ the caller said.
According to the FBI affidavit, Dr. Howard R. Sampley, a physician at a local hospital, also received similar calls.
