A Texas attorney on February 7 was sentenced to 180 days after pleading guilty to attempting to cause his wife to have an abortion by spiking her drinks with the abortion pill misoprostol, NBC News reported.
Houston attorney Mason Herring, 38, was indicted in November 2022 on two felony charges, including assault on a pregnant woman. Herring was initially arrested in May 2022 and released on bond.
Herring and his wife Catherine had separated in early 2022, and during marriage counseling, she informed him that she was pregnant. According to court records, Catherine told police that her husband was not happy about the pregnancy.
According to Catherine, in March 2022, Herring insisted that she keep hydrated and offered her a glass of water. She noticed that the water appeared cloudy but Herring explained that it might have been a dirty glass or dirty pipes.
After drinking the water, Catherine became seriously ill, suffering from cramps and bleeding that led her to visit the ER.
The incident made Catherine suspicious. She refused to drink anything offered by her husband and set up cameras throughout their home.
Catherine gave the police video footage from the cameras showing Herring mixing something into her drink and cleaning trash out of his car. She told police that she went to see what he had thrown away and discovered the packaging for misoprostol.
She told police that Herring had subsequently attempted to give her laced beverages on six other occasions but she refused to drink them.
Herring agreed to plead guilty to one count of injury to a child and one count of assaulting a pregnant woman.
At her estranged husband’s sentencing in a Harris County court, Catherine Herring told the judge that the 180-day sentence was too lenient. The daughter, now a year old, suffers from developmental delays and receives therapy eight times a week.
Catherine Herring told the Associated Press that 180 days for trying to “kill your child seven separate times” was not justice.
The judge also sentenced Herring to 10 years of probation and barred him from having contact with Catherine or their 1-year-old daughter.
