(LifeSiteNews) – Charges have been dismissed against an Ohio pro-life activist accused of violating a noise ordinance in what his team called a selective prosecution that misrepresented the facts of the case, the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ) announced Monday.

According to ACLJ, in December 2024, Zachary Knotts and his wife Lindsay attended a protest outside the Northeast Ohio Women’s Center (NEOWC) abortion facility in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Knotts used a megaphone to amplify his message, which was met with hostility by pro-abortion center escorts.

Someone called the Cuyahoga Falls Police Department, which issued Knotts a noise citation under an ordinance that bars causing “annoyance … to another,” but not “outdoor musical or theatrical performances or concerts … by any educational, charitable, governmental or religious organization,” which ACLJ argued amounted to viewpoint discrimination.

Further, police “never spoke to Zack. They never asked any of the protesters what happened or for their side of the story. They never asked to see Zack’s video. They didn’t cite any of the abortion escorts for their noise or their threats,” according to ACLJ.

According to the group’s follow-up announcement, prosecutors failed to sustain the charges in court after the lead officer in the case said he did not actually witness Knotts using the megaphone (which Knotts says had run out of battery by the time police arrived) and had relied on recordings that Knotts and his attorneys had never been allowed to see, in violation of his rights.

“As the trial began, prosecutors abruptly tried to change their theory of the case – an 11th-hour maneuver that amounted to rewriting the charges on the spot. We immediately objected to the bait-and-switch,” ACLJ said. “The prosecution then tried to have the trial rescheduled for a later date. We held firm. Enough was enough. Zack had waited too long to have his day in court, and we weren’t going to allow the government to continue delaying this matter, which amounted to little more than a trumped-up noise ordinance violation.”

Now, ACLJ is considering a possible civil rights lawsuit against those who brought the case to disincentivize similar action against other pro-life activist in the future.

Meanwhile, on the national level, the Trump administration has instructed the U.S. Department of Justice to abide by strict new limits on when the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act should be invoked to prevent it from being used to persecute pro-life activists as it was under the Biden administration. Many pro-lifers believe the FACE Act must still be repealed entirely, arguing that localities can handle local crime on their own and that the danger of a future pro-abortion president abusing the law again is too great. Republican U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas has reintroduced legislation to repeal the FACE Act in the House of Representatives and says he is prepared to force a vote on it if necessary.