There was outrage among conservatives over the weekend after it was revealed that the FBI took Houck in a fully-armed SWAT raid last week on the orders of the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Mark Houck, the founder and the president of The King's Men — the group that helps men to overcome addiction to pornography was detained at his remote Pennsylvania residence on Friday night for an alleged violation of The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act during his routine sidewalk counseling in front of an abortion facility in 2021. Talking with LifeSiteNews, Houck's wife, Ryan-Marie, told us that 25-30 fully-armed FBI agents swarmed their home early on Friday morning, aiming their rifles at the children as they were screaming in horror.
“They started pounding on the door and yelling for us to open it,” Ryan-Marie said about the attack.
Before opening the door, Mark allegedly tried to argue with the agents to make them calmer to protect his children. “Please I'm about to let you in; however, please know that my children are at home. There are seven children in the home,” Houck allegedly told agents.
The FBI agents “just kept pounding and screaming,” according to Ryan-Marie.
“They had big, huge rifles pointed at Mark and pointed at me and kind of pointed throughout the house,” Ryan-Marie said about the moment when her husband's door was opened to the agents.
“Our staircase is open, so [the kids] were all at the top of the stairs which faces the front door, and I was on the stairs as well, coming down,” she added. “The children were all screaming. It was all extremely frightening and traumatizing.”
In a statement sent to Fox News on Sunday, the spokesperson for the FBI Philadelphia field office denied that a SWAT Team had been used to capture Mark Houck.
“There are false claims that are being made about Houck's arrest. Mark Houck. There was no SWAT Team or SWAT operators were involved. FBI agents came to the door of Mr. Houck's front entryway, identified themselves as FBI agents, and requested that he leave the house. He obliged, and was arrested without incident, in accordance with the indictment.” The FBI said.
The FBI confirmed that between 25 and 30 armored agents were at the scene. Houck's kids were witness to the agents aiming guns at their father as well as mother to detain him after the alleged act of pushing people in the front of an abortion clinic.
Houck's wife spoke to Catholic News Agency that the “SWAT team of about 25 came to my house with about 15 vehicles and started pounding on our door” and they were carrying “about five guns pointed at my husband, myself, and basically at my kids.”
Ryan-Marie said her children had been “really sad and stressed” because of the raid. She also said that she had already “reached out to some psychiatrists or psychologists to try and help us through this.”
“I don't really know what's going to come of it when you see guns pointed at your dad and your mom in your house when you first wake up in the morning,” she said to the media outlet.
According to Ryan-Marie, the allegations were based on an incident during which he pushed an abortion advocate who was in the front of an abortion facility in one of his counseling sessions. The charges were, according to reports, “thrown out of the District Court in Philadelphia” earlier this year, only to be taken up in Merrick Garland's Department of Justice. As reported by LifeSiteNews:
“In a number of instances when Mark went to the sidewalk counsel in the past year, he brought his son who was just 12. In “weeks and weeks,” a “pro-abortion protester” would speak to the boy by saying “crude … inappropriate and disgusting things,” like “you're dad's a fag,” as well as other remarks that were too offensive for to communicate.”
In the past, Mark would tell this man who was pro-abortion that he didn't have permission to speak with his son, and to stop doing it. In the end “he kept doing it and kind of came into [the son's] personal space” with a vulgar smear of his father. Then, “Mark shoved him away from his child, and the guy fell back.”
“He didn't have any injuries or anything, but he tried to sue Mark,” and the case was thrown out of court in the spring
Local media reported another story, alleging that Houck assaulted a victim, who was 72 years old, at least twice and the second was a need for “medical attention.” WHTM said:
“In the first incident, the victim tried to help two patients from the clinic at the time Houck brutally pushed him on the ground. The second time, Houck was alleged to have confronted the victim and pushed him on the ground in front of Planned Parenthood center, causing injuries that needed medical care.”
The report didn't mention Ryan-Marie's assertion that the case was removed from District Court prior to the Department of Justice picking up the case.
The FACE Act makes it a federal crime to harass or injure with anyone who tries to restrict abortion access. U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero said:
“Affliction of violence is always a crime of serious severity as per the FACE Act, if the victim is targeted for assault due to their connection to the clinic for reproductive health, that is a federal crime. Our Office and the Department of Justice are dedicated to prosecuting crimes that could compromise the rights and safety of every person.”
“Put simply, violence is never the answer,” said Jacqueline Maguire, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Philadelphia Division. “Violating the FACE Act by committing a physical assault is a serious crime for which the FBI will work to hold offenders accountable.”
Houck could be sentenced to as long as 11 years in prison as well as fines of up to $350,000 if convicted.
