Welden sentencing delayed over doubts of Drug Potency

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The sentencing of John Andrew Welden on serious charges related to an alleged abortion inducing pill has been ordered by a Federal judge, who is now not convinced of the reasons for sentencing.

Welden has not been tried for a series of charges related to giving a woman a bottle of pills while pregnant because he accepted a plea deal with the prosecution. The seriousness of the charges could have meant that he would have been sentenced to 13 years and 8 months in jail. The judge, U.S. District Judge Richard A. Lazzara now wants evidence about the potency of the drug, misoprostol, to be thoroughly discussed before sentencing the Tampa gynecologist’s son.

Welden had given a bottle of the pills, disguised as antibiotics, to Remee Jo Lee, who he was having a relationship with, despite also having another girlfriend. Welden knew that Lee was pregnant, but she had refused to have an abortion.  Lee apparently had only taken one of the pills before complaining of cramps and then had a miscarriage. The embryo was only 7 weeks old.

The delay in the sentencing comes because the judge is now not convinced about the potency of the drug and whether in fact the taking of the pill was directly related to the miscarriage. The irony is that if the plea deal had not gone ahead, and Welden had gone to trial, then it would have been more likely that medical evidence about the drug and its effects would have been heard.

Welden’s defense attorney, after his client was first charged, brought up evidence that cast doubt on whether a single pill containing the drug at that concentration could have caused a miscarriage. The attorney, Todd Foster, had told the judge that the miscarriage rate for ordinary pregnancies was 25%. He also presented an affidavit from a lecturer at Brown University’s medical school, Dr. Rebecca Allen, who has published material on misoprostol.

Dr. Allen said that it would have been impossible to determine that a single pill containing 200 micrograms of misoprostol could have induced a miscarriage for Ms. Lee. She also said that, in her opinion, a pill of this potency would be unlikely to cause “serious bodily injury”, which was what Welden was charged with.

The criminal justice system depends on a defendant being convicted “beyond reasonable doubt”, hence the delay now ordered by Judge Lazarra’s.

The judge has told the prosecutor, W. Stephen Muldrow, that he expects the prosecution to be able to provide evidence that will refute the evidence that suggests that a single pill would cause a miscarriage. Mulden said that the prosecution will be able to provide such evidence.

Without the serious bodily injury conviction, Welden’s sentence could drop from 13 years 8 months to a maximum of 41 months for the charges of tampering with a product and mail fraud.

The sentencing date has not yet been fixed and Judge Lazarra said that he would prefer to listen to the experts’ opinions about the potency of the drug in person, rather than listen to them over the phone.

The defendant will now also have a reduced guard presence outside his parent’s house, where he is staying as part of the bail terms, while awaiting sentencing. At first, he was expected to have private security cover of two guards outside the home at all times of the day and night, but this has now been reduced to none at night, providing that either Welden’s step mother or father is present at home at the same time.