A Texas midwife has been arrested and charged with illegal performance of an abortion, a second-degree felony, according to court records and an announcement Monday from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R).
Maria Margarita Rojas, 49, and Jose Manuel Cendan Ley, 29, were taken into custody in Waller County, whose district attorney referred the cases to Paxton for prosecution. Paxton made no mention of Ley, who court records show is a Cuban citizen.
Both were in jail and being processed on Monday night, after a judge set Rojas’ bail at $1.4 million and Ley’s at $700,000.
The arrests appear to be the first in Texas under a near total abortion ban the state began enforcing after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Megan LaVoie, head of the state’s court administration, said her office doesn’t track abortion-related criminal charges.
Rojas and Ley are also charged with practicing medicine without a license, a third degree felony.
In a release Monday, Paxton accused Rojas, a midwife, of illegally operating a network of clinics in the Houston area. Paxton’s office said it filed for a restraining order to shut down the clinics.
“In Texas, life is sacred,” Paxton said in a statement. “Texas law protecting life is clear, and we will hold those who violate it accountable.”
A woman answering the phone Monday at one of Rojas’ clinics said she wasn’t there. A message to a phone number shown as Rojas’ in court documents wasn’t returned.
Waller County, where Rojas and Ley face the charges, leans conservative with voters favoring President Donald Trump in the November election. District Attorney Sean Whittmore (R) won unopposed.
The Texas Supreme Court last year upheld a law generally banning abortions except to protect the life or fertility of the mother. Law enforcement can charge a person who performs a prohibited abortion with a first or second degree felony depending on whether the abortion caused the death of the fetus.
Patients who get an abortion aren’t criminally liable.
The announcement of the arrest comes a month after a Texas judge imposed $100,000 in penalties against Dr. Maggie Carpenter of New York, who Paxton sued for prescribing a Texas woman abortion-inducing medication.
Carpenter also faces criminal charges in Louisiana.
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