Newswire

Guilty Pro-Abort Gets Suspended Sentence

Protestors to return in June

FLINT, MI. -- The Rev. Matt Trewhella had never seen anything like what happened when he and other anti-abortion protesters came to Flint in August.

But he's vowing Missionaries To The Preborn will return just the same.

Amanda Crim of Davison startled Trewhella and other onlookers when she drove her car over a curb at S. Saginaw and W. Court streets and began screaming at the anti-abortionists during a downtown demonstration. Crim said she was outraged by the group's graphic placards showing aborted fetuses.

Crim and the Wisconsin pastor yelled at each other in front of a gathering crowd before Crim slapped Trewhella, who struck back. The pair wrestled to the ground, where Trewhella's wife, young children and supporters pulled them apart.

The incident was detailed in a Journal article and photo.

Trewhella, who heads the Milwaukee anti-abortion group Missionaries to the Preborn, said he required no medical attention after the incident; a cut lip that his son, Matt, 3, sustained in the melee healed in a couple of weeks.

Trewhella's contingent of about 35 people had no similar encounters during the remainder of the two-week area trip.

"We have had several occasions when we have been punched, slapped or spit on, but nothing like what happened in Flint," he said.

Undaunted, he said the anti-abortionists plan to bring their posters and placards to Flint again.

"We plan on coming back next summer, sometime in June," Trewhella said.

Crim, 25, was arrested after the incident and eventually pleaded guilty to assault and battery before Flint District Judge Nathaniel C. Perry III. He suspended her sentence until Feb. 28 with the promise that the Flint city attorney will dismiss the case if she has not had more "assaultive contacts."

The Journal could not reach Crim for comment. Her uncle, Douglas W. Crim, a Lansing attorney who represented her in court, said he had no comment on the case.

Crim is the granddaughter of former state House Speaker Bobby Crim, for whom the famed Crim Festival of Races is named.

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Posted by Editor at December 28, 2004 05:06 PM