Washington state man indicted over death threats to human tissue supplier

SEATTLE (Reuters) - A Washington state man was indicted on Thursday for making online death threats against a biotech company that supplies human tissue to researchers and has former ties to Planned Parenthood, a U.S. attorney said.

Scott Orton, 57, of Puyallup, roughly 40 miles (65 km) south of Seattle, was indicted by a federal grand jury on a charge of transmitting interstate threats, U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner said in a statement.

Orton made many anonymous threats on a Fox News website against StemExpress, a California company that supplies human tissue for biomedical research, according to Wagner and a probable cause statement.

An attorney representing Orton could not immediately be reached.

StemExpress became embroiled in the U.S. debate over abortion services after the release this summer of videos secretly recorded by an anti-abortion group of Planned Parenthood staff discussing how to obtain human tissue from aborted fetuses.

Among the threats, Orton declared his intent to travel to Placerville, about 50 miles east of Sacramento, to kill an officer of the company, Wagner said.

According to court documents, Orton wrote that "the management of StemExpress should be taken by force and killed in the streets today... Kill StemExpress employees... I'll pay you for it."

He is to be arraigned on Dec. 29. If convicted Orton faces a maximum statutory penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

StemExpress said it cut ties with Planned Parenthood in August. After Orton's arrest, it said the videos released over the summer "have since been shown to be heavily edited and proved to be false."

"The defendant, like so many others, was manipulated. The deceptive nature of the videos, however, does not excuse or lessen the criminal nature of his actions," the company said in a statement.

Wagner, the U.S. Attorney, said: "Terrorizing others through threats of violence, whether communicated in person or through media websites, is cruel, dangerous and disruptive."

Orton was arrested on Tuesday at his home in Puyallup and has since been released on bond, a spokeswoman for Wagner said.

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)