MILWAUKEE (CN) - A grand jury in Wisconsin Tuesday indicted Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan on charges relating to accusations that she helped an undocumented immigrant escape her courtroom unnoticed by waiting ICE agents.

Dugan was released on bond pending her arraignment on Thursday. Her arrest drew large protests outside of the federal courthouse, where hundreds of people called for the charges against her to be dropped entirely.

Dugan, 66, was arrested by FBI agents in April on charges of obstruction and concealing an individual set for deportation, both felonies. The FBI claims Dugan helped an undocumented man, Eduardo Florez-Ruiz, evade ICE agents waiting outside her courtroom by leading him out a private side door.  

Florez-Ruiz was later chased down and detained as he attempted to leave the courthouse, marking at least the third arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the Milwaukee County Courthouse in recent months, while local officials call for policies preventing immigration enforcement activities in public service buildings.

On Tuesday, a grand jury found that Dugan had intentionally concealed Flores-Ruiz despite a warrant and further impeded agents by falsely informing them that they needed a judicial warrant to make the arrest, by allowing the target to leave through a side door and by advising his counsel that he could appear by Zoom for his next court date.

The indictment also charges Dugan with addressing Flores-Ruiz's Milwaukee County criminal case off the record while ICE agents spoke to Chief Judge Carl Ashley about the warrant.

FBI agent Lindsay Schloemer confirmed in the original complaint that ICE agents showed up in plain clothes with an administrative warrant, which is not signed by a judge but is enforceable in public places. Agents need a judicial warrant to make arrests in private places like the arrestee's home.  

The case quickly drew national attention after FBI Director Kash Patel tweeted about the judge's arrest, claiming Dugan endangered the public by allowing Flores-Ruiz to evade arrest. Patel also claimed that agents "chased down the perp on foot," referring to the 20-minute foot chase that ensued as Flores-Ruiz was leaving the courthouse.

Flores-Ruiz appeared in Dugan's courtroom on April 18 for a pre-trial conference related to multiple counts of misdemeanor battery involving domestic abuse. He was sitting in the gallery when ICE agents arrived, according to Schloemer.

The agent in the affidavit goes on to lay out a series of events between the agents' arrival in plain clothes to the courtroom and the foot chase that ended in Flores-Ruiz's arrest.

The FBI claims Dugan left the bench to confront the agents in the hallway, ordering them to speak to Chief Judge Carl Ashley on a different floor. Dugan then apparently used the opportunity to escort Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out of the courtroom through the side "jury door" and down a private staircase.

Schloemer asserts that several witnesses watched this unfold, all of whom may have testified before the grand jury proceedings that took place on Tuesday.

Typically, judges are given the opportunity to turn themselves over to authorities in cases like this. Dugan, however, was arrested outside the courthouse and brought to the federal building in shackles, according to U.S. Marshals Service spokesperson Brady McCarron.

"This is the authoritarian playbook," said Sarah Turberville, a constitutional expert with the Project on Government Oversight. "To go after the elements of government that operate independently of the leader and there's perhaps no part of our government that has sought to be more independent than the courts."

Local leaders have been sounding the alarm on immigration enforcement in critical government offices, suggesting it could prevent even those in the country legally from accessing services for fear of being wrongly arrested. The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors has called on the chief judge and the county executive to take steps to prevent this kind of enforcement going forward.

"Community members feeling safe to utilize the courthouse as intended is our top priority, whether that's attending a hearing, seeking resources or supporting a loved one," County Supervisor Caroline Gomez-Tom said in a statement after Dugan's arrest.

Turberville warned that Dugan's case is a major escalation in the power struggle between President Donald Trump and the courts and a chilling step toward autocracy.

She added that Congress has the power to intervene into some of the president's more sweeping executive actions, such as dismantling whole agencies and withholding federal funding from his perceived adversaries.

Source: Courthouse News Service