Prosecutor Drops Abortion Charge in Queens Murder Case

As Democrats in New York last month celebrated Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s signing in of an abhorrent and unthinkably cruel abortion up to birth Act in the state, pro-life campaigners predicted it would eliminate criminal penalties for violence that kills unborn babies.

The debate resurfaced this month after the Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, cited the Reproductive Health Act signed into law on January 22nd as the reason for dropping an abortion charge against a man who the police say fatally stabbed his former girlfriend when she was 14 weeks pregnant.

The man, Anthony Hobson, 48, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder for the Feb. 3 attack on Jennifer Irigoyen, 35. Meris Campbell, a spokeswoman for the district attorney, said prosecutors dropped a second-degree abortion charge after learning that the Reproductive Health Act, which was signed on Jan. 22, had stripped the crime from the state penal code. 

“Thanks to the #RHA, it’s open season on pregnant women in New York,” Dennis Poust, a spokesman for the New York State Catholic Conference, wrote on Twitter.

Prosecutors said surveillance video inside Ms. Irigoyen’s building in Ridgewood showed Mr. Hobson dragging his former girlfriend out of her third-floor apartment to a stairwell, where he stabbed her several times in the torso, neck and abdomen. She later died at a hospital.

Abortion charges are rare in New York. Last year, only one person was charged with the crime, according to the governor’s office. Prosecutors rarely used the charge because it did not add anything to the prosecution of a case, officials said.

In the case from last year, the police said Oscar Alvarez stabbed his 26-week-pregnant fiancée six times in the abdomen with a kitchen knife on May 22, 2017, after accusing her of infidelity. He then held her hostage for at least 30 minutes.

 

The victim, Livia Abreu, an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, survived. But her fetus did not.

Mr. Alvarez was charged with attempted murder and second-degree abortion. It is not clear whether the Reproductive Health Act will affect his case.

Patrice O’Shaughnessy, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, said prosecutors “are continuing to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the case, and evaluating existing law.”






« Back to News