SoylentNews

takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

A Puyallup, Washington man, Scott A. Orton, has been charged after making online death threats [theguardian.com] towards a biotechnology company involved with Planned Parenthood, such as [rawstory.com] "Kill StemExpress employees. I'll pay you for it" posted on a Fox Nation comment section:

A Washington man who allegedly threatened executives of a California biotech company that processed fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood faces prosecution in one of the rarest sorts of criminal cases – for violence threatened online.

The indictment stated that Scott A Orton, 57, had a record of online menacing of local journalists, city council members, fellow commenters and even FBI agents, dating back to at least 2009. The rare prosecution comes in the wake of a mass shooting in a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic. Orton was arrested by federal agents in December for making an interstate threat to kill an executive of StemExpress.

The California firm was thrust into the spotlight when anti-abortion activists attacked the company's fetal tissue procurement practices and released highly edited, secretly filmed videos from inside Planned Parenthood. Orton's alleged comments threatened to hang a StemExpress executive with piano wire, on the Fox News website.

Two legal, registered guns were seized from Orton's home just days before three people were killed and nine injured by a shooter at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic [theguardian.com].

[Please find and link the affidavit/indictment here.]

Original Submission