(LifeSiteNews) – A 75-year-old pro-life sidewalk counselor is reportedly seeking justice from the Trump administration after Baltimore City Circuit Judge Yvette M. Bryan let off his assailant with no prison time.
In 2023, Mark Crosby, along with then-80-year-old Richard Schaefer, were severely beaten by 28-year-old Patrick Brice outside an abortion center in Maryland. Brice tackled Schaefer while repeatedly kicking and punching Crosby, who tried to intervene, in the head. The altercation resulted in Crosby ending up in a hospital’s shock trauma unit for three days for treatment of serious injuries to his skull and eye socket as well as his knees and fingers. His right eye was blinded and he suffered a concussion.
In February, a jury convicted Brice on two counts of second-degree assault and reckless endangerment for attacking the two pro-life activists but did not reach a verdict on the more serious charge of first-degree assault. In a June bench trial, Judge Bryant acquitted Brice of the first-degree assault charges on the grounds that Crosby “provoked” the defendant. She eventually sentenced Brice to a measly one year of home detention with three years’ probation.
“Baltimore City is criminal-friendly. It’s not victim-friendly at all, especially if you’re a senior,” Crosby told the Daily Wire. “Judges do not like pro-lifers. They don’t like us saving babies. I don’t know why.”
Last week, the Daily Wire said that it obtained a letter written by Crosby’s attorney, Terrell Roberts, to Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon calling on her to “consider prosecution” of Brice under federal law.
“Finding Brice not guilty of a violent felony in the face of overwhelming evidence and showing extraordinary leniency by imposing a sentencing without any imprisonment in the face of the prosecution’s request for a 10-year sentence of imprisonment was a gross miscarriage of justice,” Roberts allegedly wrote.
Crosby, a devout Catholic, told LifeSite that the vicious assault should be regarded as an anti-Catholic “hate crime” because Brice yanked off the crucifix and chain he was wearing around his neck.
“They hand out rosaries and religious literature to women and offer religiously based counseling with the goal of preserving the life of the unborn,” Roberts also reportedly said of Crosby and Schaeffer in the letter.
Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, has also weighed in on the matter. He described the incident as a “vicious, targeted assault on two senior citizens whose only ‘offense’ was praying for expectant mothers and offering life-affirming alternatives to abortion. The light sentence sends a dangerous signal: Attack pro-lifers with impunity, especially if you’re ideologically opposed to their stand for the innocent unborn.”
President Donald Trump announced Dhillon as his pick for assistant attorney general in December 2024. Dhillon has represented a number of high-profile clients, including pro-life journalist David Daleiden and “detransitioner” Chloe Cole. Daily Signal managing editor Tyler O’Neil praised Dhillon, calling her “a fearless advocate, not just for pro-lifers, but for the civil liberties of many who stand against the woke orthodoxies of the day.”
Crosby previously told LifeSite that despite the pain he endured from the attack, “My shedding blood in front of Planned Parenthood for Jesus and the babies” has actually been “a gift to me.” The “millions of babies murdered” at Planned Parenthood over the years “have shed rivers of blood.”
