Woman Who Firebombed Abortion Clinics Is Sentenced

A woman who pleaded guilty to firebombing six abortion clinics was sentenced Friday to 20 years in federal prison.

Rachelle Shannon has about seven years remaining on a term she is already serving for shooting and wounding Dr. George Tiller at a Wichita, Kan., clinic in 1993. She will serve her federal sentence after her Kansas term is finished.

“I can see here a record of violence,” said U.S. District Judge James Redden at a sentencing hearing held under heavy security.

“She’s a nice person and good mother and wife,” Redden said. “I don’t understand how you could go from one to the other, but it happened.” Shannon has two children.

Shannon, 39, sat motionless throughout the sentencing hearing and declined to make a statement when Redden asked her if she wished to speak.

Shannon, of Grants Pass, pleaded guilty June 7 to 10 federal charges resulting from firebombings at West Coast clinics in 1992. Under the plea agreement, she was to be sentenced to 15 to 20 years.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Stephen F. Peifer said Shannon could win early release if she does not communicate with other anti-abortion activists while in prison. He said she has not ended such communications, however.

Meanwhile, in an unrelated legal action, the national office of Operation Rescue was evicted from the headquarters it had set up next door to an abortion clinic in Richardson, Tex. A jury ruled Thursday in a lawsuit filed by the landlord that the group does not have to pay $3,300 in back rent, however.

The Rev. Flip Benham, who heads Operation Rescue, said landlord Warren A. Gilbert Jr. promised that the anti-abortion group could use the space free until the lease expired.