Court orders new trial for Gosnell codefendant

An unlicensed doctor convicted of fraud and conspiracy in the trial of West Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell should have been tried separately because of Gosnell's notoriety, a Pennsylvania appeals court has ruled.

In a unanimous ruling Tuesday, a three-judge panel of Superior Court granted a new trial to Eileen O'Neill, 58, of Phoenixville.

The charges against Gosnell - the 73-year-old was found guilty of murdering three infants born alive in illegal late-term abortions - made it impossible for a jury to fairly consider the case against her, the court ruled.

Judge Mary Jane Bowes wrote that O'Neill's case was "one of the exceptionally rare instances where the evidence against one codefendant was so inflammatory and inherently prejudicial that jury instructions were insufficient."

Bowes called the evidence against Gosnell "shocking and highly disturbing. It is difficult to even read the cold record without having a visceral reaction to what transpired in Gosnell's abortion clinic."

James Berardinelli, O'Neill's attorney, said Wednesday that "if ever there was a case [for a separate trial], it was this one."

Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore, one of the Gosnell prosecutors, said that she could not comment but that her office was considering whether to appeal.

O'Neill was one of nine employees of Gosnell's Women's Medical Society clinic at 3801 Lancaster Ave. charged with Gosnell in 2011.

All except her pleaded guilty. O'Neill went to trial with Gosnell and was convicted by a Common Pleas Court jury in May 2013.

She was sentenced that July to six to 23 months' house arrest, followed by two years' probation. The judge, however, agreed to immediately parole O'Neill because of problems in transferring supervision of house arrest to Chester County.

Gosnell is serving three consecutive life sentences in the state prison in Huntingdon.

Berardinelli said O'Neill is well and continues working, although she is barred from anything related to medicine.

Unlike other employees charged with Gosnell, there was no evidence that she was involved in performing or assisting in the illegal abortions, although she was aware of what was going on in the clinic.

Instead, O'Neill worked in the family practice section of Gosnell's clinic, caring for the elderly and children in the Mantua neighborhood who had depended on Gosnell for decades.

Although O'Neill had completed medical school and a residency program, she was never licensed as a physician.

At trial, her lawyer argued that O'Neill worked in Gosnell's clinic for nine years based on his promise to help her get licensed in Pennsylvania.

The charges against her involved practicing medicine without a license but billing patients as though she had one.