One of the most anticipated misdemeanor trials in the history of downtown Chicago’s Dirksen Federal Courthouse is now just a week away.
The trial for the four remaining “Broadview 6” defendants will begin with jury selection Tuesday, May 26. While prosecutors recently agreed to dismiss with prejudice the felony conspiracy charges against Oak Park Trustee Brian Straw and the other three anti-ICE defendants, the trial on their remaining misdemeanor charges from last year is still expected to last two full weeks.
The four were arraigned May 18 on their misdemeanor charges before prosecutors and defense attorneys spent the next 90 minutes resolving more than a dozen outstanding issues at the final pretrial conference. Among issues settled by U.S. Judge April Perry were conflicts surrounding deleted video evidence, grand jury transcripts and a possible jury “field trip” to the Broadview detention center. Prosecutors, attorneys and defendants worked a few feet away from 14 empty juror seats in the 17th floor courtroom where the trial will take place next week.
The four still charged in the case are Straw, 45th ward Democratic committeeman Michael Rabbit, Katherine “Kat” Abughazaleh, who fell four points shy of winning Illinois’ 9th district congressional primary last month, andAndre Martin, who worked on Abughazaleh’s campaign staff.
The government announced earlier this month that it would not pursue the felony conspiracy charge that it had indicted Straw and five other anti-ICE protestors on last year.
Prosecutors filed an indictment last October alleging that the six were among a crowd of protestors who blocked, pushed against and banged on a vehicle being driven by a federal agent into ICE’s Broadview Detention Facility the morning of Sept. 26. Until recently, the government had contended that their actions that morning amounted to a criminal conspiracy punishable by years in federal prison.
The misdemeanor charges of impeding a federal officer that the four now face carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a maximum fine of $100,000, according to lead federal prosecutor William Hogan.
The court has arranged for an overflow room at the courthouse where the public will be able to view the highly publicized and politicized proceedings, along with reserved seating in the courtroom for the defendants’ families.
Judge Perry also agreed to review an unredacted transcript of the grand jury hearings that led to the original indictments last year after defense counsel accused the prosecution of trying to cover up “irregularity” in those proceedings.
“Whatever happened in the proceeding could’ve tainted all of this,” said Chris Parente, attorney for Straw.
The defense had previously made a push for those records in a recent court filing after prosecutors abandoned the felony charges.
“This remarkable about-face, abandoning a high-profile indictment rather than submit to scrutiny of its conduct before the grand jury comes at a time of mounting national distrust in the Department of Justice’s use of the grand jury process,” attorneys wrote earlier this month.
Ninety potential jurors will make up the pool for jury selection on May 26. Defense attorneys could not convince Judge Perry to grant their request to take half a day during the trial to bring jurors to the Broadview ICE facility.
Perry said she and her judicial colleagues couldn’t recall a single criminal case where that had been allowed to happen.
“It’s not a great use of time or taxpayer money and the chance of something going wrong is massive,” she said. “If we were to do this, I guarantee there would be a crowd at Broadview that day to watch.”
“It would draw a mistrial almost immediately.”
The prosecution will likely use audio of protestors’ anti-ICE chants like “f**** you pig” and “get a real job” to support their argument that the defendants knowingly and intentionally obstructed the federal agent, regardless of if the defendants were recorded participating in the chants during the incident.
Parente said footage of the incident shows that Straw did not participate in those chants.
But prosecutors will not try to hold the defendants accountable for actions of other protestors, including the reported vandalism of the agent’s SUV by other unknown protestors, Hogan said.
The case will also go forward after some Broadview Police body worn camera footage of the incident was deleted. The footage disappeared as the police department reportedly transitioned between camera vendors.
Hogan said the government still plans to use footage of the individual defendants at the protest, including video of Straw reportedly fighting “his way through the crowd to push against the vehicle.”
The government previously dropped the charges against original co-defendants Catherine “Cat” Sharp, a Chicago aldermanic staffer who gave up on her bid for the Cook County board citing the stress of the prosecution, and Joselyn Walsh, a local musician who was the only defendant in the case that doesn’t have a job in local progressive politics.
The so-called “Broadview 6” are among 32 known defendants to have been charged with nonimmigration crimes tied to Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago’s federal court.