Pro-life advocate Bevelyn Beatty Williams voluntarily surrendered on October 16 at FCI Aliceville in Alabama for protesting outside a Manhattan abortion clinic in June 2020. The married, 33-year-old mother of one was sentenced in July to 41 months in prison for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.
According to the July 24, 2024 press release from Damian Williams, the U.S. district attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), Ms. Williams was indicted “in connection with her interference, including by threats and force, with individuals seeking to obtain and provide lawful reproductive health services at a reproductive health center in Manhattan.”
Williams, a stay-at-home mother of a young child, had hoped to stay out of prison while her appeal was being considered. Unfortunately, her stay of appeal request was denied by the court.
In an October 15 Facebook video, Williams, at times tearful, told followers she would be going to prison while sharing the court’s notification of the denial of her request.
I spoke with Ms. Williams in mid-September to hear her story. She told me the government accused her of blocking the entrance to the clinic. The government also accused her of hurting the hand of a clinic employee. According to Williams and her lawyers, the allegations were false but the jury convicted her anyway.
Williams’ attorney, Aaron Mysliwiec, told Dinesh D’Souza in an October 20 interview that “the government tried to argue that Bevelyn made entrances impassable, but there was no point at which Bevelyn chained herself to an entrance, blocked an entrance in any kind of long-term way.”
Mysliwiec went on to explain that her defense attorneys had to “fight to get into evidence dozens and dozens of other video clips, which thankfully the judge eventually let in, that showed every time someone came up to the door to either enter or attempt to exit, every time Bevelyn stepped aside.”
District Attorney Damian Williams’ press release alleges “WILLIAMS pressed her body against the door of the Health Center’s patient entrance and refused to move, preventing a Health Center volunteer from entering the Health Center. As a Health Center staff member (“Victim-1) attempted to open the door for the volunteer, WILLIAMS purposefully leaned against the door, crushing Victim-1’s hand.”
During our interview in September, Williams explained she neither crushed the employee’s hand nor did she block the entrance to the clinic. Williams, a steadfastly religious woman, shared that she “never moves without God on her side and did not show up unannounced to the clinic” in question. The fact that she did not show up spontaneously is important because, as Mysliwiec explained to D’Souza, the NYPD knew of her presence and officers were present the day of the protest.
Mysliwiec confirmed “NYPD was on the scene, they saw the incident. They made no arrests… and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York [also] didn’t do anything. They waited over two years.” Mysliwiec speculates the decision to delay charges was politically motivated, “triggered by the Dobbs decision.”
Williams shared her perceptions of the Planned Parenthood employee, who claimed she slammed her hand in the door.
“She was an escort that day. She said in court that I slammed her hand in the door and crushed her hand. But she didn’t go to urgent care until five days later. The police were there, and I was never arrested for that. But two years later, after doxing me, they started making calls to get me indicted. I was protesting and speaking with women on the sidewalk, all within a public space, all legal and well within my First Amendment right to do so.”
Notably, according to Williams, the jury initially found her “not guilty” of a fourth charge of injury to the woman’s hand. However, Williams says that during the trial, “the judge sent a note to the jury telling them they had to find me guilty of all four charges to be found guilty. So that is what the jury did.”
As I listened to Williams speak about how she expresses her beliefs, I realized that her evangelistic style of communication and closely held beliefs on abortion may have wrongfully contributed to her indictment. Williams’ profound regrets about her three abortions have led her to a deeply held belief that all abortion is murder.
Williams believes she was misunderstood because of her evangelical style of preaching directly from the bible. “What I was saying was from the gospel. I said, ‘The enemy will be terrorized, no peace for the weekend.’ That wasn’t a threat to women entering the clinic. It was a spiritual declaration.”
"I am a black woman whose life experience made me who I am today. I told the judge and jury about my three abortions.” Williams continued, “I told them about my childhood. I told them I was standing where I was standing because I lived it. I felt like a Negro out of line. These people push narratives for women, but they lead our women to slaughter to kill their babies. They aren't thinking about the aftermath. These girls live with the fact that they killed their babies. They run around with broken hearts, fighting people in a store, getting arrested, and committing crimes. They are arrested and put in jail and are left on a road to destruction where they act out. It isn't right. It is a setup for failure.”
The Facebook video shows Williams correcting the record. She has since shared a document proving her offense was “unlawful assembly.” Williams believes she has been wrongfully accused of being violent.
“So, all of this about me being violent,” Williams explained, “All of this stuff like that, no, no. Don’t let the media play you. I’m going to jail, and my category of offense is ‘unlawful assembly’… I’m going to jail for three and a half years for unlawful assembly. I believe that speaks for itself.”
Williams will continue to preach the gospel in prison, sharing in her Facebook video that “[t]he good news is ministry doesn’t stop in jail. Did I want to go? Of course not. Do I want to go? No, I don’t. I don’t want to go. Cried about it a thousand times. I don’t even think I have enough tears to cry about it. I wanna be with my husband and my daughter, but that’s not happening right now.”
Image: Bevelyn Beatty Williams
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