Judge Tosses Charges in Kansas Abortion Case [View All]

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Source: Associated Press

A judge Wednesday dismissed the most serious charges against a Kansas City-area Planned Parenthood clinic accused of falsifying records and failing to follow abortion law after a prosecutor revealed that state officials had destroyed key evidence.

Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe told the judge he had no choice but to ask that 49 of 107 charges against the clinic be dismissed because documents central to the case were destroyed.

Meanwhile, authorities in the state capital of Topeka, at the request of Attorney General Derek Schmidt, plan to investigate the records shredding to determine if any laws were broken. The documents were reports on individual abortions performed in 2003, filed by Planned Parenthood's clinic in Overland Park with the state health department, as required by law, and copies held by the attorney general's office under Schmidt's predecessors.

District Judge Stephen Tatum dismissed 23 felony counts of falsifying such reports, as well as 26 misdemeanor charges that the clinic had failed to maintain its own copies, as required by law. Prosecutors wanted to compare in court copies of the documents the state had with those Planned Parenthood produced later when the clinic was under investigation. Prosecutors allege the documents didn't match, suggesting the clinic didn't keep proper records and created false ones when compelled to produce them.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/judge-tosses-charges-kansas-abortion-case-14919495