The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced a California man has been arraigned in federal court for making threatening telephone calls last year.
Nishith Tharaka Vandebona, 34, currently of Bakersfield but formerly of Camarillo, is charged with three misdemeanor counts of threatened forcible intimidation regarding the obtaining and provision of reproductive health services under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, according to an April 6 news release.
"Death threats are never acceptable regardless of what a person believes," U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in the release. "No one should be threatened with death or bodily harm simply because they provide health services or work for a nonprofit. This indictment serves as a warning that there will be significant repercussions especially for anyone seeking to intimidate those seeking and providing reproductive health services."
Vandebona is accused of making threatening phone calls last year, including one to a Planned Parenthood clinic on the day the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, according to the release. He also faces two felony counts of sending threatening messages to another group in Ventura County.
Vandebona was sentenced to jail without bond by a federal magistrate judge, the release reported. The indictment, which was returned March 29 and unsealed April 5, claims Vandebona created anonymous phone numbers using an online application between the months of February and June of 2022 in order to make the threatening calls.
As an early draft of the new judgment was leaked, news reports surfaced in the spring of 2022 that the Supreme Court was considering overturning Roe v. Wade, its 1973 ruling that recognized a constitutional right to abortion, the release said. The Supreme Court reversed the ruling and found the Constitution does not grant a right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which was decided June 24, 2022.
"The Constitution gives each of us broad free speech rights, but using death threats to bully individuals or attempt to terrorize others will lead to criminal charges, as evidenced in this indictment. The use of violence to intimidate an individual from exercising their rights cannot be tolerated in a free and civil society," Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office Donald Alway said in the release.
The charges against Vandebona come amid heightened concern over threats to reproductive health clinics, the release reported. The National Abortion Federation reported there was a significant increase in threats, harassment and violence in the months leading up to the Supreme Court's ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.
The group recorded more than 1,200 incidents in the first half of 2022, compared to just above 200 in the same period in 2021, according to the release.