3 Anti-Abortion Protesters Sentenced For Trespassing At Clinic

WHITE PLAINS, NY — Three men affiliated with an anti-abortion group that trespassed at a women's health care clinic in White Plains will be going to jail.

Miriam Rocah, the Westchester County district attorney, said Wednesday, the three Red Rose Rescue members, two of whom live out of state, were sentenced Tuesday to 90 days in jail following their criminal conviction for trespassing at All Women's Heath and Medical Services in White Plains.

The district attorney's office recommended the maximum sentence allowed under the law of three months.

Rocah said she will use the full force of her office to protect patients and reproductive rights in Westchester County.

"Abortion is legal in the state of New York and interfering with a patient's right to access medical and reproductive care is a crime," she said.

Following a three-day trial in March, a jury found Matthew Connolly, 40, of Minnesota, William Goodman 52, of Wisconsin, and Christopher Moscinski, 52, of Bronx, guilty of third-degree criminal trespass, a misdemeanor.

The men entered the health care facility around 8:40 a.m. Nov. 27, 2021, where they remained unlawfully for about two hours despite receiving numerous requests and warnings to leave from medical staff and the White Plains Police Department.

They disrupted facility operations and patient service, with two of them occupying the waiting room, rendering it unusable, and another using his body to create an obstacle in one of the office doorways.

White Plains police arrested them and had to physically carry them out of the medical center.

At the time, Red Rose Rescue called the action "a nonviolent direct action intervention."

Goodman was quoted in a Facebook post as saying they stayed in the building "to be faithful patient advocates for the moms and their tiny little ones in the womb … in conscience, we could not leave while innocent people were in harm's way."

In June, the Westchester Board of Legislators passed and County Executive George Latimer signed the Health Care Facilities Access Act to protect health care workers and patients seeking medical treated from being kept from accessing a reproductive health care facility. It also protects them from harassing behavior from people within specific distances from the premises.

The law puts a 25-foot no-harassment zone around a facility's perimeter and establishes an 8-foot personal space bubble surrounding the person within 100 feet of the facility.