THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, March 26, 1996 TAG: 9603260358
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Short : 44 lines
An anti-abortion activist who spent nearly a month in jail for refusing to answer a federal grand jury's questions was freed Monday after a second appearance before the panel.
Rae Powell said she told the grand jury investigating abortion clinic violence what they wanted to know about how she obtained a copy of the Army of God manual, an underground booklet that describes how to blow up abortion clinics.
According to Powell, she got the manual from a former local activist, Jennifer Sperle, and returned it to her after making copies. ``I thought other people would want to see it,'' she said.
Sperle, who moved last year from Norfolk to Wichita, Kan., has said she knows she's a target of the investigation, which has focused on a pair of small fires at clinics in Norfolk and Newport News.
A small but vocal group of abortion opponents regularly conducts protests at local clinics. But they have denied resorting to violence. They contend the grand jury probe is an effort to intimidate them into silence.
Powell, who was taken into custody Feb. 28 after refusing to testify, said she had a private conference with U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar just before returning to the grand jury room Monday.
She said Doumar warned her that she could face criminal contempt charges and a lengthy prison stay if she continued to refuse to answer questions.
Since investigators already knew the answers to what they were asking her, she said, she decided to go ahead and testify.
``I don't know that it was worth it, but I thought it was at the time,'' she said of her stay at the Western Tidewater Regional Jail in Suffolk.
She spent about 20 minutes before the grand jury, whose proceedings are secret. Besides being asked about the manual, she said she was asked about the clinic fires, but didn't know anything about them.
KEYWORDS: ABORTION by CNB