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Authorities: Street Evangelist Violates Judge's Order, Stalks Englewood Abortion Doc Again

A self-described Christian missionary from Bergenfield who was accused of using a drone to peer into the second-floor office of an Englewood abortion doctor was arrested again Friday morning for violating a restraining order, authorities said.

INSET: Daniel Stephen Courney / Metropolitan Medical Associates on Engle Street in Englewood

INSET: Daniel Stephen Courney / Metropolitan Medical Associates on Engle Street in Englewood

Photo Credit: INSET: FACEBOOK / GOOGLEMAPS

POSTED EARLIER THIS YEAR: “Don’t let them kill your baby. Save that baby’s life,” Courney shouts in this Facebook video. “You are your baby’s keeper. There is no justification for murder.”

Photo Credit: Jerry DeMarco
Daniel Stephen Courney's mugshots from late March and Friday, Aug. 27.

Daniel Stephen Courney's mugshots from late March and Friday, Aug. 27.

Photo Credit: ENGLEWOOD PD

A Superior Court judge in March ordered Daniel Stephen Courney, 37, not to return to Metropolitan Medical Associates on Engle Street as a condition of his release after city police charged him with stalking the doctor.

He was back Friday morning -- and recorded it on Facebook.

Officers responding to a call of excessive noise by a small group of people shortly after 8:30 a.m. arrested Courney for contempt of the judge's order, as well as stalking and illegal weapons possession (a folding knife), Capt. Thomas Greeley said.

He was sent to the Bergen County Jail to await a hearing in Superior Court in Hackensack.

Courney, previously of Scarsdale, publicly warned on Facebook after his release in March that he'd return to the "murder mill."

"We will not be intimidated,” he wrote in the post.

Courney has said he served as a combat medic in the U.S. Army before being "medically discharged with a permanent disability" that he didn't identify.

He calls himself a “slave of Christ, husband, father of six, pastor of Christ Covenant Church, street preacher, veteran.”

Courney was once convicted in in England for using “threatening and discriminatory language” against a Muslim woman, calling her “ISIS” and telling her to “go back to your country.”

An appeals court overturned the verdict, agreeing that he was protected under free-speech laws there.

Courney had also been a missionary in Nepal and India for several years.

Various news reports show that he entered India on a tourist visa nearly 15 years ago, married a local woman and preached Christianity for more than a decade before he was deported in 2017.

Critics said he insulted other religions – particularly Hinduism – while criticizing the Indian government. Courney countered that he was doing nothing other than "spreading the Light of Jesus Christ in this dark land."

He said he and his wife operated an orphanage boys and oversaw "various mercy ministries, such as the monthly support of widows, enabling poor, socially-repressed Christians, and programs to help the community."

It was late March when police said they caught Courney piloting a drone equipped with a camera and speaker outside Metropolitan Medical Associates, where he and other pro-lifers have frequently protested over the years.

Courney had been terrorizing the doctor over a four-month period by “purposely and repeatedly” following him and “engaging in a course of conduct with the intent of annoying or placing him in reasonable fear,” beginning last December, Detective Capt. Timothy Torell said at the time.

Englewood police “recognize constitutionally-protected rights to join with fellow citizens in lawful and peaceful protests,” the captain said. However, Courney’s behavior toward the doctor was illegal, he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration provided ongoing assistance in the investigation, which led to stalking charges against Courney, Torell said.

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