Biden DOJ doesn't recommend jail time for trans-identified vandal who assaulted church employee
In a controversial plea agreement, the U.S. Justice Department doesn't recommend jail time for a trans-identified individual who admitted to vandalizing the St. Louise Catholic Church in Bellevue, Washington, and assaulting a church employee.
The March 14 plea agreement for 31-year-old Maeve Nota, reported this week by The Catholic News Agency, revealed that the DOJ recommends three years of probation for his sentencing on June 2.
Nota, a biological male who identifies as female, defaced the St. Louise Catholic Church with profane graffiti, destroyed a statue of the Virgin Mary, smashed two glass doors with rocks, spray-painted offensive messages on the church's exterior walls. The defendant also spray-painted the face of a church employee who tried to chase him away.
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According to CNA, the damage cost more than $30,000. Nota had been charged with a hate crime at the state level and assault, which can carry a sentence of up to one year in prison, a $100,000 fine and five years of probation.
Police later reported that Nota used a backpack full of spray paint cans to smash a police vehicle before turning himself in, Fox News reports.
Investigators said Nota appeared intoxicated during the arrest and was angry about the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade the week before the incident. The Supreme Court ruled that abortion is not a constitutional right.
In early March, the Biden Justice Department charged Nota with the destruction of religious property. It remains to be seen if the court will accept the plea agreement.
The St. Louise Catholic Church is far from the only church vandalized after last June's Supreme Court ruling. The social conservative advocacy group Family Research Council tallied 57 hostile acts against churches between January and September 2022 related to abortion activism.
An update report released this week outlines 69 acts of vandalism against churches in the first three months of 2023.
Arielle Del Turco, the director of the Center for Religious Liberty at the Family Research Council, told CBN News that the increasing hostility toward churches in the U.S. indicates the rising secularism in the United States and declining understanding and reverence of religion.
"So many of these core Christian teachings directly contradict the secular dogmas that have become so important and enshrined in a very secular culture, like abortion, same-sex marriage, like transgenderism," she said.
Del Turco contends there is "increasing evidence" that the Department of Justice may hold a bias against churches.
"Just the fact that these would-be criminals that are going after and targeting churches are not being deterred from doing these acts, to me, that signals that not enough is being done to punish the perpetrators of these crimes."
The recommendation in Nota's case comes as pro-life activists have accused the Biden Justice Department of unfairly prosecuting a Catholic pro-life activist.
The Biden administration prosecuted father of seven Mark Houck after an encounter with a Planned Parenthood escort outside a Philadelphia abortion clinic, claiming he violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.
Houck faced up to 11 years in prison and a $350,000 fine after he was arrested by the FBI at his home last September. In January, a unanimous jury acquitted him in federal court.
"The jury saw through and rejected the prosecution's discriminatory case, which was harassment from day one," Thomas More Society Executive Vice President & Head of Litigation Peter Breen said.
Houck first gained national attention after the FBI arrested him at his home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 23.
On Steve Bannon's Real America's Voice program "The War Room" in February, Houck detailed the 6:45 a.m. raid, where FBI agents and approximately 15 Pennsylvania state troopers descended on the home.
"I was awake; my children and my wife were asleep," he said at the time. "The manner with which the FBI banged on my door is particularly worth noting because they rang the doorbell, it was dark outside, repeatedly they rang the doorbell, and they banged on the door saying 'Open up.' They didn't even declare who they were. They didn't even state their names."
"As I opened the door, I could not believe the circus scene that I saw: at least 10-15 marked and unmarked units right in front of me surrounding the side of my house," he continued. "I have 100 yards to the street, cars lined all the way up to the street, long guns pointed at me, heavily armored vests, ballistic helmets, ballistic shields, [and a] battering ram."
