On July 24, 2024, a 33-year-old young mother named Bevelyn Williams was sentenced in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) to over three years in federal prison for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. UncoverDC spoke with Williams on Wednesday about her sentence. Williams believes she is being persecuted for her religious beliefs and for defending the sanctity of life. Williams believes her case should have been viewed as a First Amendment case, not a criminal case. According to Bevelyn and her lawyer, Aaron Mysliwiec, the timing of the investigation was somewhat suspicious. The Department of Justice (DOJ) launched its investigation after the Dobbs ruling, two years after the protests took place. Williams protested at a Manhattan abortion clinic in 2020 during the COVID pandemic when many businesses were shut down because of the mandates. New York AG Leticia James also sued Williams in 2021. The case was settled in court with an order that would ensure Williams was never within 30 feet of the clinic.
Breanna Morello interviewed both Williams and Mysliwiec on September 9. Mysliwiec has taken the case and will appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals because he believes Williams' conduct was permissible First Amendment speech and freedom of association. Moreover, Mysliwiec contends the judge did not properly instruct the jury on the parameters of the law surrounding First Amendment activity. Morello's interview with Williams and Mysliwiec can be viewed below:
The DOJ alleges Williams "threatened and used force against patients and staff members at a reproductive health center located in lower Manhattan," blocking access to the clinic on July 25 and 26, 2020. One "victim" alleged Williams "purposefully leaned against the door, crushing [her] hand." According to the press release from the United States Attorney's Office in the SDNY, Williams live-streamed the event on Facebook.
Williams began her ministry helping the homeless in 2019. Eventually, her ministry turned to advocating for the unborn because of her contact with Operation Save America (OSA), a faith-based organization whose ministry is to advocate for "the cause of preborn children" using biblical principles. She was drawn to the cause, in part, because she wanted to protect women "who looked like her." In Denver, Williams met a woman with OSA who taught her the "intricate conspiracies of abortion and how true they were." Williams had already had three abortions herself and said her experience "taught her that the conspiracies were true." Williams told UncoverDC:
"It was like watching my own life. Before my eyes, I was seeing how I was bamboozled. I grew as a conservative because of going out to preach the gospel, talking to people on the streets, and realizing a lot of Democrat policies are the reason so many Black Americans and even lower-class white people I met were in the position they were in. Because of welfare, because of the lack of fathers in the home, because of idleness that welfare supplies to people. When you are idle, you find time to get in trouble. There were things I saw that began to align with the Bible. I realized my real values were conservative. I watched my Bible come to life."
Fast forward to 2020, when she was living in New York, and Governor Cuomo is in office. He expressed support for a law that permitted late-term abortions for mothers whose health could be at risk. Williams and her best friend Edmee Chavannes, who was acquitted of the same charges, were "devastated" about the changes in New York abortion law. Williams believes her friend was acquitted because she did not have a social media footprint or the following Williams had. Williams' viral posts and videos attracted massive attention from both sides of the issue. Williams also believes Chavannes' lawyer (Mysliwiec) was heads above hers.
Williams and Chavannes made it their job to speak loudly about their beliefs at a Manhattan clinic on Bleecker Street. Williams said, "The clinic was the head of the snake, made more money than any other clinic in the city using our tax funds." At one point, she and Chavannes were arrested and jailed "without any legal basis for doing so." According to Williams, "the ticket was canceled" via email. They were arrested, using COVID as an excuse, and they "were doing a favor for Planned Parenthood," which was ironically open when many other businesses were mandated to close. They continued to return to protest at the clinic while live-streaming their protests "for protection." Thousands of people began to follow her and Chavannes.
During our conversation, Williams noted the irony of the Black Lives Matter protests all over the country that resulted in burned-down neighborhoods and violence nationwide with almost no convictions and, often, no arrests. She believes her community was used as a pawn to push agendas "in the name of black lives." It was, Williams said, "A slap in the face. I am watching women who look like me going into clinics to kill their babies left and right. BLM was pushing agendas for transgenders and abortion, which are directly against the nuclear family. It was everything that destroys the black community. They are pushing and marketing it in the name of black lives. BLM painted a mural in front of the Trump Tower in our name where people can drive over it. How low can you go? I felt like a tool and a pawn for their agenda." Williams was so fed up she famously painted over a BLM street mural in front of the Trump Tower.
Around the same time she painted over the BLM mural, her cousin had been in a shootout in Staten Island and had to have his leg amputated. BLM and Antifa were calling for the defunding of the police in communities that badly needed the presence of law enforcement, according to Williams. She believes BLM protesters were using her community to "willingly push a narrative that would only make her community more vulnerable." And, she says, BLM and Antifa know the consequences of their behavior. Williams stated:
"We have a severe issue with violence and crime in this community, let alone with the police, with ourselves. We don't know how to treat each other right now. BLM wants to move funding from the very gates that's going to keep us from killing each other off because we can't even go outside without someone dying in our neighborhood. So we kill ourselves off on the streets, and we kill ourselves in abortion clinics, or we are being homosexuals and not reproducing, and if we are reproducing, we are killing our own babies. We are going to get rid of our fathers. It is a dead end, and it is the ultimate manipulation. I am fighting for the very survival of my community. These people know nothing about the struggles we face. And, they call me a House Negro, saying I don't love myself. I am standing for my community because I love myself. I have a righteous anger in me."
Williams says it was proven in court that she did not crush any hands or block the entrance. She says she "never moves without God on her side" and, in fact, never showed up unannounced. She had, on many occasions, the support of law enforcement. On July 25 and 26, 2020, Williams organized a 2-day Jesus Matters rally. She distributed fliers saying it was a non-violent protest, and people of all faiths showed up. Counter-protesters also showed up, antagonizing her and her allies. They would "stand inside barricades and poke us in the face aggressively with umbrellas," said Williams. "I never put my hand on anyone, but if you stick an umbrella in my face, I am going to break it." The police were there the whole time and told the protesters not to stick umbrellas in their faces if they didn't want to end up with a broken umbrella.
According to Williams, the Planned Parenthood employee "who claimed I slammed her hand in the door is a marketing executive for Planned Parenthood. She was an escort that day. She said in court that I slammed her hand in the door and crushed her hand, but she didn't go to urgent care until five days later." It came out in court that the executive had "no broken bones, no sprained ligaments, nothing." According to Williams, "The police were there, and I was never arrested for it. But two years later, after doxxing me, they started making calls to get me indicted. I was protesting and speaking with women on the sidewalk, all within a public space." Williams shared that the woman who said her hand was injured was "caught on the stand lying about her hand." As a result, according to Williams, the jury found her "not guilty" of a fourth charge of causing the injury to the woman's hand. However, the judge sent a note to the jury telling them that they had to find Williams guilty of all four charges to be found guilty. So, the jury relented.
As for the other charges of obstructing access, interfering, and threatening women who were entering the clinic, Williams says the jury found her guilty of threatening because of her preaching and interfering because she told women abortion is murder. "What I was saying was from the gospel," added Williams. "It was an issue of freedom of speech, not an issue of preventing medical care. I said, 'The enemy will be terrorized, no peace for the weekend.' That isn't a threat. It was a spiritual declaration. I was standing on a public sidewalk, not obstructing. That is how they found me guilty in February."
"I told the judge and jury about my three abortions. I told them about my childhood," Williams continued. "I told them I was standing where I was standing because I lived it. I felt like a Negro out of line. These people push narratives for women, but they lead our women to slaughter to kill their babies. They aren't thinking about the aftermath. These girls live with the fact that they killed their babies. They run around with broken hearts, fighting people in a store, getting arrested, and committing crimes. They are arrested and put in jail and are left on a road to destruction, where they act out. It isn't right. It is a setup for failure." Williams knows this because she lived it. "The judge gave me 41 months. It is so tough. She had no consideration for the fact that I have to leave my child when I go to prison."
