Michigan man gets community service for shooting anti-abortion campaigner

IONIA, Mich. — A western Michigan man who pleaded no contest to shooting an 84-year-old woman campaigning against abortion rights at his home was sentenced to community service Tuesday.

Richard Harvey, 75, was ordered to complete 100 hours of community service. Judge Suzanne Hoseth Kreeger also gave him a suspended jail sentence of two months and a delayed sentence of one year on probation.

Harvey pleaded no contest last month to felonious assault, careless discharge of a firearm causing injury and reckless discharge of a firearm.

Kreeger also must pay $347.19 in restitution and cannot have any contact with the woman he shot, 84-year-old Joan Jacobson.

Jacobson was shot Sept. 20 at Harvey’s home in Odessa Township, a community about 130 miles (210 kilometers) northwest of Detroit. Jacobson told investigators that she was asking a woman at the home to vote against a proposed constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to abortion in the state when she was told to leave. The amendment later passed.

Harvey has said the shooting was accidental, but Jacobson has maintained she believes it was intentional after she had argued with Harvey's wife, Sharon Harvey.

Jacobson was treated at a hospital for a shoulder wound.