(LifeSiteNews) — Pro-life advocate and Catholic father of seven Mark Houck filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice (DOJ) last month for $4.3 million, citing “malicious” and “retaliatory” prosecution after he and his family were subjected to an FBI raid.
The dawn raid of Houck’s home in 2022 by dozens of heavily armed FBI agents has become emblematic of the DOJ’s inordinate targeting of pro-life Americans with excessive force under President Joe Biden. The DOJ had charged Houck with two felonies for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act when he pushed abortion facility “escort” Bruce Love, 73, during sidewalk altercations in 2021.
During Houck’s criminal trial, attorneys with the Thomas More Society successfully showed that the Catholic sidewalk counselor and father pushed Love simply to protect his then-12-year-old son from the verbally abusive abortion activist.
Houck was acquitted on both charges last year.
The pro-life father filed a complaint in November 2023 under the Federal Tort Claims Act, naming six police officers who raided his home, according to the Federalist. Having passed the mandated six-month notice period, the claim became an active lawsuit as of late May.
Houck has accused the Biden DOJ of “malicious prosecution, retaliatory prosecution, abuse of process, false arrest, assault, and intentional infliction of emotional distress committed by federal employees and agents against Mr. Houck, Mrs. Houck, and their children.”
Houck’s wife Ryan-Marie previously described to LifeSiteNews how the raid affected their children. She told how the SWAT team of 25 to 30 FBI agents, having surrounded their house with rifles in firing position, “started pounding on the door and yelling for us to open it.”
When Houck opened the door, “they had big, huge rifles pointed at Mark and pointed at me and kind of pointed throughout the house.” When they came in, they ordered the kids to stay upstairs. “Our staircase is open, so (the kids) were all at the top of the stairs which faces the front door, and I was on the stairs as well, coming down,” Ryan-Marie said.
“The kids were all just screaming. It was all just very scary and traumatic,” she explained.
As a result, the homeschool mother said her kids were “really sad and stressed. So, I’ve already reached out to some psychiatrists or psychologists to try and help us through this. I don’t really know what’s going to come of it when you see guns pointed at your dad and your mom in your house when you first wake up in the morning,” she told LifeSiteNews.
Houck’s complaint states regarding the raid, “This egregious and excessive show of force was both unnecessary and unlawful. Mr. Houck is a peaceful man. He has never been convicted of any crime of violence or even owned a firearm, and was innocent of the non-violent federal charges against him, as a jury would unanimously conclude after Mr. Houck’s trial a few months later.”
Conservatives and members of the pro-life movement have pointed to the raid, arrest, and prosecution of Houck as a prime example of the weaponization of federal law enforcement under the Biden administration to attack pro-life Americans.
Shortly after Houck’s dramatic dawn arrest by the FBI, fellow pro-life Catholic and father of 11 Paul Vaughn was similarly targeted by federal law enforcement. That same month, the DOJ hit 11 pro-life activists, including an 87-year-old survivor of a communist concentration camp, with federal charges under the FACE Act for a peaceful protest at a Nashville, Tennessee, abortion facility.
READ: Jailed pro-lifer held in prolonged solitary confinement suffers stroke
Shawn Carney, 40 Days for Life president and CEO, told the Federalist that Houck’s arrest marked an unprecedented level of force against 40 Days for Life participants.
“I haven’t found a current or former DOJ employee who has ever heard of someone’s home being raided after they offered to turn themselves in,” Carney said. “It’s absurd, and if it can happen to him, it can happen to any American.”
LifeSiteNews reached out to Houck for comment but had not heard back at the time of publishing.
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