2 Deny Guilt in Illegal Medicine Charges : Women Suspected of Operating Home Abortion Clinic

A 64-year-old Placentia woman and her daughter, suspected of operating an illegal abortion clinic, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of practicing medicine without a license and were released on their own recognizance.

Rafaela Duarte Vargas and her daughter, Aurora Herlinda Vargas, 36, had been in the Orange County Jail since Friday when police arrested them at the mother’s home on suspicion of distributing medicine and inducing illegal abortions.

Police confiscated records, syringes, tranquilizers and other drugs--most from Mexico--and $6,000 in cash.

On Tuesday, North Orange County Municipal Court Commissioner Richard Behn set a pretrial hearing for Jan. 28.

Relatives and neighbors of the women denied the two were operating a medical clinic out of the small house behind a home in the 200 block of South Melrose Street in Placentia. They criticized police for what they called entrapment and said the drugs confiscated were mostly for their own personal use, and the money was the family’s life savings.

Undercover Investigators

Police arrested the women after sending an undercover cadet, posing as a pregnant teen-ager, and an officer, posing as her boyfriend, to the Vargas home last July. According to police, during six meetings with the one or both of the officers, the women offered the cadet a shot to induce abortion but then encouraged her to go through the birth and give the baby to them.

On Friday, police said a meeting was set up between the women and the undercover male police officer, who had phoned the women to say he would give them the baby.

“They thought they were going to get the baby at the time,” Placentia Police Lt. Daryll Thomann said.

Instead, police arrested the women and confiscated medication, most of which they have yet to identify since labels are in Spanish.

The older Vargas has been a cook at a nearby restaurant for 20 years but has not worked for about six months because of a broken wrist. Her daughter is a nurse in Mexico and visits occasionally, according to family members.

Police said they received an anonymous letter about an illegal abortion clinic in Placentia about two years ago, but the letter gave them no good leads to follow. A second letter last year led them to the small two-bedroom house where Rafaela Vargas has lived for about seven years.