A federal jury found Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan guilty of a felony charge of obstructing federal agents related to an incident in April where she interfered in an immigration arrest at the Milwaukee County Courthouse.
The jury delivered the verdict on Thursday following a four-day trial at the Federal Courthouse in Milwaukee. The jury’s verdict was split, convicting her for a felony charge that she obstructed or impeded a proceeding before a U.S. department or agency.
The jury acquitted her on a misdemeanor count tied to concealing an individual from discovery and arrest.
The federal charges stem from Dugan’s actions on April 18, when she left her courtroom and confronted agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other plain-clothes agents in the hallway of the courthouse.
Dugan was accused of helping Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, and his attorney evade federal immigration officers at the courthouse. She learned that he was in the country illegally and that the officers were waiting to arrest him after his court appearance.
A jury of seven men and five women deliberated more than six hours before delivering a split verdict, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Dugan, 66, showed no emotion as the verdict was read.
Clinton-appointee U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman presiding over the case did not set a sentencing date, and her high-powered defense team plans to fight the conviction. The maximum penalty would be five years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.
Interim U.S. Attorney Brad Schimel asked that people keep politics out of the case and the verdict. He said the charges against Dugan were not about the government trying to make an example of the judge’s behavior, but was instead a serious matter they felt necessary to pursue.
“We all need to keep this case in proper perspective, and I hope that all viewers, readers, listeners will pay attention to this,” Schimel said during a press conference shared on WISN 12 News. “Some have sought to make this about a larger political battle. While this case is serious for all involved, it is ultimately about a single day, a single bad day, in a public courthouse. The defendant is certainly not evil, nor is she a martyr for some greater cause. It was a criminal case like many that make their way through this courthouse every day and we all must accept the verdict peacefully.”
Dugan attorney Steve Biskupic highlighted that the jury delivered a split verdict and the elements between the two counts are the same.
“The case is a long way from over,” Biskupic said.
The Journal Sentinel reported that Dugan’s legal team would be filing a motion asking Adelman to set aside the conviction, especially based on the split verdict.
“While we are disappointed in today’s outcome, the failure of the prosecution to secure convictions on both counts demonstrates the opportunity we have to clear Judge Dugan’s name and show she did nothing wrong in this matter,” her defense team said in a statement. “We have planned for this potential outcome and our defense of Judge Dugan is just beginning.”
The jury foreperson, who did not provide his name to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, said, “I am not feeling too good,” following the verdict.
“I will say the jury followed [Judge] Adelman’s instructions faithfully,” the foreperson said.
Other jurors declined to speak to the media.
Flores-Ruiz, 33, who has since been deported by the Trump administration, had a laundry list of violent criminal charges, including strangulation and suffocation, battery and domestic abuse.
Ruiz had illegally entered the United States twice. He was scheduled to appear in Dugan’s courtroom for a pre-trail hearing on domestic violences charges.
In opening statements Monday, prosecutors told jurors that Dugan “knew what she did was wrong” and argued arrests in the courthouse are “standard and routine.”
Evidence presented during the trial centered focused on Dugan’s actions on April 18, when federal agents came to the sixth floor of the Milwaukee County Courthouse with a warrant to arrest Flores-Ruiz.
Per court documents, she ordered the agents to the chief judge’s office down the hall. She then rescheduled Flores-Ruiz’s hearing via Zoom and instructed him and his attorney to leave her courtroom out a hallway door reserved for jurors.
Jurors were shown surveillance video and listened to audio from inside Dugan’s courtroom.
WISN reported prosecutors walked through the sequence in detail:
- Hallway surveillance video showing Dugan confronting federal agents outside her courtroom; there was no audio on the hallway video.
- Audio from inside the courtroom, played alongside a transcript for jurors to follow, including a moment in which Dugan’s clerk is heard saying, “We have 5 ICE guys in the hallway.”
- Prosecutors’ interpretation of courtroom audio, including that Dugan called Flores-Ruiz’s case out of order and told his attorney to take him out and return for a rescheduled date, which prosecutors argued was intended to get him out of the area.
FBI Special Agent Jeffrey Baker testified about his actions at the courthouse that morning and his interactions with Dugan. Baker described Dugan’s tone during the hallway encounter, saying, “anger would be the best way to describe it.”
The government called in 19 witnesses to testify, ranging from federal agents to a fellow judge. Dugan’s colleague, Judge Kristela Cervera, went out in the hallway with her and testified that she hesitated to enter a public hallway in her robe and confront federal immigration agents with Dugan.
She also testified that Dugan’s attitude progressed from irritation to anger. Cervera testified that she led the agents to the office of Chief Judge Carl Ashley’s office, as Dugan directed, but Cervera said she was surprised when Dugan disappeared.
Cervera said she was “shocked” when she learned the FBI was investigating Dugan, and added, “Judges should not be helping defendants evade arrest.”
Federal prosecutors arrested Dugan in April on obstruction charges for her behavior. Dugan was indicted by a federal grand jury in May. She pleaded not guilty to the obstruction charge, and a lesser charge of concealing an individual to prevent arrest.
Dugan initially tried to get the case tossed out, arguing that she was acting within the scope of her official duties and therefore entitled to judicial immunity.
The prosecutors focused on the facts of the case and avoided politics, but it could be legally monumental, the Journal Sentinel noted. This is the first time a state judge has gone to trial on charges of obstructing immigration agents.
