Feds say they’ll drop conspiracy charge against remaining ‘Broadview Six’ protesters

CHICAGO — In a surprise move Wednesday, federal prosecutors said they intend to drop the main conspiracy charge against a handful of politically active protesters indicted last fall in connection with a demonstration outside a suburban U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.

The unexpected action ahead of a scheduled May 26 trial significantly pares down the feds’ case against the “Broadview Six,” which was already whittled down last month after prosecutors dropped all charges against two defendants.

Read more: Charges dismissed for 2 of ‘Broadview 6’ ICE facility protesters

The group still includes former congressional candidate Katherine “Kat” Abughazaleh and her deputy campaign manager, Andre Martin. Abughazaleh’s social media video of the Sept. 26 protest captured the moment she and dozens of others surrounded an ICE vehicle that drove through the demonstrating crowd, banging on its windows.

Speaking to reporters after Wednesday’s hearing, defense attorneys framed the feds’ intent to dismiss the conspiracy charge as a victory, but also an acknowledgement that the charges were “baseless … from the start,” said Nancy DePodesta, a lawyer for Chicago 45th Ward Democratic Committeeman Michael Rabbitt, a defendant who previously ran for the Illinois House.

Chris Parente, who represents another defendant, Oak Park trustee Brian Straw, said they’d “take the win for right now, but we’re still very angry that they ever charged this,” pointing to the possibility that would-be protesters stayed home for fear of being charged “for just standing there and exercising their right of freedom of assembly to protest what this administration is doing.”

“We don’t know how many people stayed at home because they were worried about being indicted with a bulls–t 372 (conspiracy) charge by this U.S. attorney’s office, and now they’re going to dismiss it,” Parente said of prosecutors.

The charges stem from a late September demonstration at the height of protests outside the ICE facility in Broadview, a few weeks into the Trump administration’s Chicago-focused mass deportation campaign dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz.”

Read more: ‘Broadview Six’ plead not guilty to charges of ‘impeding’ agents outside ICE facility | Democratic candidates, officeholders indicted for ‘impeding’ agent outside ICE facility

An October indictment charged the group with an overarching count of felony conspiracy, which alleged they conspired to “interrupt, hinder, and impede” a federal immigration agent from the “discharge of his official duties.” They still face charges for misdemeanor simple assault of a federal officer, which does not require physical contact.

The vehicle’s windshield wipers were damaged and someone scratched “PIG” into its side, though the government has acknowledged it isn’t alleging any of the defendants perpetrated those specific acts of vandalism.

A trial in the case is still scheduled for May 26, but U.S. District Judge April Perry hinted at possible alternative endings to litigation.

Grand jury transcripts

Wednesday’s revelation also blocked defense attorneys from seeing unredacted transcripts of the grand jury sessions that resulted in the October indictment. Perry last week scheduled Wednesday’s hearing to resolve certain legal issues before trial and ordered prosecutors to bring copies of those grand jury transcripts to court.

But just as she was asking government lawyers if they objected to the transcripts being provided to defendants, Assistant U.S. Attorney William Hogan told the judge she’d “find that is moot” as prosecutors were moving to dismiss the conspiracy count. The conspiracy charge was the only felony in the indictment and grand juries do not generally consider misdemeanor charges.

Defense attorneys on Wednesday suggested the move to dismiss the conspiracy charge may have been partially motivated by the feds’ desire to keep the grand jury transcripts out of their hands.

Parente pointed out that it took three separate grand jury sessions to deliver an indictment.

“Why can’t we see that? Why can’t the people of this district know what the government said to that grand jury?” he asked reporters. “We’d love to know, and we’re going to keep pushing for it, because we think we have a right to know.”

First Amendment issues

Even after prosecutors said they would move to dismiss the conspiracy charge, Judge Perry on Wednesday delivered her ruling on defense attorneys’ earlier motion to dismiss that same charge on First Amendment grounds, denying the motion.

After a brief back-and-forth with lawyers about whether the protesters’ hands on the ICE vehicle was an expression of free speech or merely a way to protect themselves from the massive SUV cutting through the crowd, Perry said she could only rely on the facts alleged in the indictment.

“The indictment is not seeking to punish protected speech,” she said, noting the feds weren’t alleging protesters’ signs and chants were criminal acts.

But prosecutors also want to admit those chants and signs as evidence in the case to show demonstrators’ intent, which the judge said she’d consider closer to trial — if it still moves forward.

Perry’s ruling follows another she made earlier this month, declining to grant defendants’ motion to dismiss charges on selective prosecution grounds. Lawyers argued that the Department of Justice targeted the six original defendants because they were mostly elected officials and candidates. They also demanded the government turn over any communications between White House officials that might show undue influence on prosecutors.

But no such records exist, prosecutors said, maintaining that the defendants were indicted because their faces were visible in photo and video footage reviewed by the government, and not because of their status as politicians. Perry noted that the indictment of public officials is the “bread and butter of the U.S. attorney’s office” as bringing public officials to justice is “considered a good deterrent.”

“Being a politician is not a protected class,” Perry said.

Abughazaleh is no longer a politician after last month’s primary, having finished second in a crowded primary for Illinois’ 9^th congressional district, though the influencer-turned-candidate recently announced her campaign apparatus would live on as an advocacy organization.

In a social media statement Wednesday, Abughazaleh said the case “has cost … immeasurable amounts of stress, money, and opportunity.”

Lawyer Parente also pointed to Catherine “Cat” Sharp’s January decision to drop out of a race for a Cook County Board seat, saying the case “cost one defendant — who they (prosecutors) dismissed — a chance to run for an elected office.”

The other defendant whose charges were dismissed last month, Joselyn Walsh, does not work in politics but performed songs during protests at Broadview. During the same Sept. 26 demonstration at issue in the case, federal agents shot a rubber bullet through Walsh’s guitar.

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