Judge says employees must face trial with abortion clinic owner Kermit Gosnell

Several former employees of a notorious West Philadelphia abortion clinic listened nervously, fidgeting and sometimes weeping, as defense lawyers Friday tried to persuade Common Pleas Court Judge Benjamin Lerner to grant two of the defendants separate trials.

Attorneys for health-care worker Eileen O'Neill and office administrator Elizabeth Hampton argued that their clients had not been involved in what they called the clinic's corrupt business or participated in illegal abortions.

O'Neill, who graduated from medical school but was not a licensed physician, worked in the family practice section of the clinic. She is charged with theft by deception for working with Kermit Gosnell, the doctor who owned and ran the clinic, where late-term abortions were allegedly carried out under appalling conditions.

Gregory Pagano, O'Neill's lawyer, said his client had nothing to do with abortions or the alleged "pill mill" operation involving the sale of illegal prescriptions at the clinic.

In January, Gosnell was charged by a state grand jury with eight counts of murder in the deaths of one mother and seven babies, nearly a year after his clinic was shut down. His wife, Pearl, and eight other employees were charged with various offenses as well.

Lawyer Murray Dolfman, representing Hampton, and Pagano said it would be unfair to include their clients in a joint trial with their coworkers, who have been charged with far more serious crimes.

"There is a legitimate cause for concern," Lerner said, "bringing a person into this trial who wasn't involved in the abortion part" of the clinic's operation.

Lerner denied both lawyers' motions, saying separate trials would put an excessive burden on the state. Given the complexity of the case and massive volumes of documentation, the prosecution would be forced into redundant efforts, Lerner said.

Lerner was also unwilling to require one of the key witnesses, the daughter of Karnamaya Mongar, to testify in multiple trials. Mongar, a refugee from Bhutan, died after a botched abortion in Gosnell's clinic in 2009.

Protesting that Hampton, Gosnell's sister-in-law, had been charged simply with perjury for misleading the grand jury, Dolfman pleaded with Lerner that "my client basically is the tail of the dog."

Lerner said he sympathized, but would not relent "if it means key evidence has to be presented more than once . . . especially if children are going to be hauled into court twice."

Anticipating a drawn-out process, Lerner joked that in a "burst of unwarranted optimism," he would schedule final pretrial hearings for October and November.

Outside the courtroom, Hampton, 52, broke down. "I can't go back," she sobbed to Dolfman.

Before she was released on reduced bail in March, Hampton spent two months in jail.

"Relax," her lawyer said. "Relax. Don't lose faith."