The “Bride of Christ” Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison for Violent Anti-Abortion Protests in New York

Bevelyn Beatty Williams, a famous anti-abortion activist who has described herself as the “bride of Christ,” was sentenced to more than three years in prison for violently blocking patients from entering Planned Parenthood on Bleecker St. in New York City.

Personal religious beliefs are no excuse for breaking the law, Judge Jennifer Rochon said before sentencing Williams, a 33-year-old Staten Island native and resident of Ooltewah, Tennessee.

“Crimes cannot be committed even in the name of a religious cause… People were trying to give and receive legal medical services,” Judge Rochon said in imposing the 41-month sentence, she reported. Daily News.

In February, a jury found Williams guilty of violating the Freedom Of Access To Clinic Entrances Act (1994) when he blocked women’s access to the clinic in Lower Manhattan by using physical and verbal threats, injuring a volunteer escorting patients in the process. The incident occurred on June 19 and 20, 2020.

The same month as the Bleecker St. encounters, Williams and a co-defendant, Edmee Chavannes, were arrested for smearing paint on a Black Lives Matter (BLM) mural on the street outside Trump Tower on 5th Avenue in New York City.

Planned Parenthood offers a wide range of medical services other than abortion to people with and without health insurance, including general gynecological care, breast exams, STD testing, birth control, HPV vaccines, and help with smoking cessation.

Prosecutors filed the case in December 2022. At trial, witnesses said they saw Williams using her body as a barrier in the facility and directing other anti-abortion protesters to prevent people from entering. Jurors heard she threatened staff with “war,” saying she would “terrorize this place … so much that your business will be gone.”

Feds presented evidence at trial earlier this year showing how things turned violent on the second day of protests when Williams crushed a volunteer’s hand inside a door as he tried to ease a colleague inside.

Williams and Chavannes were acquitted of a separate charge accusing them of waging a years-long campaign to prevent women from accessing reproductive health care in New York, Georgia, Tennessee and Florida.

A Planned Parenthood doctor in Fort Myers, Florida, testified that care was delayed for several patients scheduled to undergo urgent procedures — or risk bleeding, infection and severe pain — when Williams, Chavannes and others blocked the entrance to the facility in January 2022.

Williams’ attorney, Calvin Scholar, said he would ask the Bureau of Prisons to allow his client to serve his sentence near friends and family. “We accept the jury’s verdict … The sentence is harsh, it’s definitely harsh,” he said.