IONIA, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Criminal charges were filed Friday against 74-year-old Richard Harvey in the September 20 shooting of a Michigan Right to Life volunteer.

Harvey faces a variety of charges, including felonious assault, careless discharge of a firearm causing injury and reckless discharge of a firearm.

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Police reports, accompanied by a warrant request, were submitted by Michigan State Police (MSP) to the Ionia
County Prosecutor’s Office Friday morning morning.

After review of the reports and talking with MSP since the date of the incident, Ionia County Prosecutor Kyle Butler granted the request.

Joan Jacobson, 84, was shot in the shoulder while canvassing at the home of Harvey to campaign against Proposal 3, which would enshrine certain reproductive and abortion “rights” in the Michigan Constitution.

Jacobson said that she had been talking with Harvey’s wife, Sharon, about the proposal, and told police she was shot by Richard Harvey while walking to her to car to leave.

She had reportedly being asked to leave the property by the wife but was shot by the husband while exiting even though Jacobson says they had no interaction before the shooting.

Jacobson says that she didn’t argue with the wife and was shot while trying to leave the property; however, 74-year-old Richard Harvey, in an interview with News 8 WOOD-TV, had said that after hearing Jacobson arguing with his wife, he had grabbed a rifle from his barn and fired a warning shot into their tree.

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He said he tried to swat away her clipboard so it didn’t hit his wife and that shooting Jacobson was accidental.

If convicted of felonious assault, Harvey could face up to four years in prison and a fine of not more than $2,000. Felonious assault, as defined by Michigan statute is “a person who assaults another person with a gun, revolver, pistol, knife, iron bar, club, brass knuckles or other dangerous weapon without intending to commit murder or to inflict great bodily harm less than murder.”