Louisiana DA warns there's trove of evidence against NY doctor who allegedly mailed abortion pills to teen — who was planning gender reveal party: report
West Baton Rouge District Attorney Tony Clayton warned that he would eventually catch Dr. Margaret Carpenter despite Gov. Kathy Hochul's staunch defense of the New Paltz-based doctor and refusal to send her to Louisana to face charges.
'There's a warrant for her arrest in all 50 states. The issue is, do you live like an Afghan terrorist? You hide in a cave ducking the authorities?' Clayton told NOLA.com in an interview published Friday.
'She has to go to New Jersey, Philadelphia to visit relatives. If she goes on a cruise, if she does anything' outside of New York, we're going to effectuate the warrant.'
Clayton has repeatedly claimed that Carpenter violated Lousiana's anti-abortion laws when she mailed a 'cocktail of pills' to the teen's mother last year, who allegedly pretended they were for herself before she forced them on her 17-year-old daughter.
Prosecutors claim the guise would have been avoided if Carpenter had asked the family to present more than a questionnaire. The request was fulfilled without a direct consultation, Clayton alleged.
'She should have Zoomed this young lady. FaceTimed this young lady. Spoken to the mother,' Clayton told the outlet. 'If she had spoken to the mother, she would have seen the mother was not pregnant … For 150 bucks, she put that poison in the mail.'
The mother paid by credit card for the shipment of medication, Clayton said, then told the 17-year-old that she had to take the pills 'or else.'
The girl, who has not been identified, accepted the ultimatum despite initially pleading to keep the baby.
'She told the mother she wanted to have the baby. She even planned the gender reveal party. She wanted the child. She was 17 at the time,' said Clayton.
The teen's mother has been charged with criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs, a felony that carries a possible one- to five-year prison sentence.
Carpenter and her company, Nightingale Medical, PC, also face the same charge — but have evaded arrest thanks to Hochul's refusal to comply with Lousiana's extradition orders submitted Thursday.
'I want to make sure everyone in the state knows: Keep your hands off this doctor,' Hochul said upon receiving the paperwork.
'I'm respecting the laws of New York. Am I supposed to make those subservient to laws of another state?'
New York Attorney General Letitia James also piled on, calling the indictment a 'cowardly attempt out of Louisiana to weaponize the law against out-of-state providers,' adding that the indictment is 'unjust and un-American.'
Clayton, however, remains unwavering and warned that he could rely on a 1987 Supreme Court decision that granted federal authorities the power to enforce extraditions of fugitives, in a case out of Puerto Rico.
The ruling came up in 2023 in relation to a pledge by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that he wouldn't assist in President Trump's extradition from Florida to face hush-money charges in New York. Trump went on his own, NOLA.com reported.
'I'm terming it a forced abortion, which makes it even more egregious,' Clayton told the outlet.
'Ignorance of the law is no excuse. If Dr. Carpenter did not know the mother was using this pill to induce abortion involving a child, that's on her. She should not have shipped the pills.'
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