Judge Jeffrey Minehart, the judge who presided over the murder trial of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, has filed a lawsuit accusing filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney of defaming him in their book about the case.
McElhinney and McAleer, the producers of the movie “Gosnell,” published a book about the convicted late-term abortionist, “Gosnell: The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer,” earlier this year. The film has not yet been released.
The book details Gosnell's 2013 conviction of performing abortions beyond Pennsylvania’s 24-week limit, three counts of first-degree murder for killing babies born alive and the involuntary manslaughter of 41-year-old refugee Karnamaya Mongar.
Minehart filed a civil suit in a Philadelphia court last week alleging that he was defamed in the book and the authors “fabricated facts” in order to portray him as “a villain in their story of the righteous versus the wicked.” Minehart said that the book describes him as soft on crime and friendly with Gosnell’s lawyer. He denied those characterizations in the suit.
“This case is about two authors, a publishing company, and a media conglomerate – the Defendants – shamelessly exploiting for profit the morally divisive issue of abortion and the notoriety of the horrific Kermit Gosnell trial, which involved a Philadelphia abortion doctor who was found guilty of grisly mass murders of fully developed in-vitro infants, some of whom were born alive,” the lawsuit states.
In an interview with TheBlaze, McAleer said the judge “wants to put an injunction against the film, a film he hasn’t seen.”
“It’s just an unbelievable abuse of the legal process," he said.
McAleer said that the Gosnell case “has reeked of cover-up” from the very beginning, and the lawsuit is another “barrier” to the film’s release.
“It’s another barrier in a story that’s always faced barriers to be told,” McAleer said. “But we’re not going to back down. People have always tried to cover up this story, to stop this story from being told, and we’re just going to go ahead and get this film out there.
In addition to suing McAleer and McElhinney, Minehart has filed suit against the authors’ film production company and their publisher, Regnery, and Salem Media Group, which owns Regnery. A spokesperson for Regnery did not immediately respond to TheBlaze’s request for comment.
(H/T The Hollywood Reporter)
