DOJ Drops Charges Against Chicago-Area Anti-ICE Protesters (4)

The federal case against four anti-ICE protesters concluded in extraordinary fashion on the cusp of trial Thursday, with Chicago’s US attorney personally dismissing the charges and defense attorneys expressing outrage over prosecutors’ conduct at the grand jury.

At a closed hearing Thursday morning before the charges were dropped, Judge April Perry said she was “incredibly shocked” at the way prosecutors handled the matter, according to a transcript of the hearing that was later unsealed and distributed by defense attorneys. Perry said there’s a potential case for sanctions against the prosecutors involved.

Beyond problems with the way prosecutors acted at the grand jury, Perry said in the transcript, they redacted the evidence of that behavior from the transcripts they submitted for her review.

“I do believe deeply in the presumption of regularity and that most government attorneys are doing the best they can to do the right thing,” Perry said. “That trust has been broken.”

Jury selection on misdemeanor charges of impeding a federal officer had been scheduled to begin next week in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The charges, some of the highest-profile to emerge from the Trump administration’s Chicago-area deportation campaign known as “Operation Midway Blitz,” accused the protesters of blocking an officer from driving toward an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.

At a public hearing later Thursday, US Attorney Andrew Boutros told Perry his office would drop the remaining charges and said he was unaware until last month of some of the problems at the grand jury. He said he didn’t think prosecutors intended to mislead the judge by making the redactions, he said, and he stood by their decision to pursue the case.

It was but for the “grace of God,” he said, “that that agent moved at two miles an hour, that the agent didn’t panic and strike on the accelerator and hurt somebody, that the agent didn’t panic and pull out his gun and shoot somebody, that nobody on that scene perhaps had a gun and shot at the agent.”

Perry responded sternly. “You are significantly undercutting your mea culpa here by standing behind the charges and continuing to vilify these particular defendants,” she said.

At the defense’s insistence, Perry reviewed the unredacted transcripts for the first time earlier in the week, prompting the rapid scheduling of Thursday’s proceedings.

During the closed hearing, Perry described improper “vouching” — a tactic in which prosecutors improperly assure grand jurors the case is strong — at which a prosecutor put “her personal credibility and trustworthiness on the line in support of the charges,” according to the transcript.

There were also “improper prosecutorial communications” with grand jurors outside the grand jury room, and a prosecutor excused grand jurors from deliberating after they disagreed with the government’s case, Perry said.

Grand jurors at least once declined to indict the case, according to the transcript.

Defense attorneys had decried the charges as targeting the protesters’ First Amendment rights and alleged the prosecution was possibly politically motivated.

Misconduct

At the closed hearing before charges were dropped, Perry said the defense would be entitled to renewed briefing, if they wanted, on the question of vindictive or selective prosecution.

She’d previously denied a defense effort to compel discovery on that issue. But back then, she said, “there was no reason to believe that there had been anything vindictive or selective about the prosecutors’ actions.”

“We all took the government attorneys’ word on a great many things,” she said. “I, at the time, was operating on a presumption of regular grand jury proceedings, which these were very clearly not.”

After court Thursday, the defense said prosecutors’ conduct as described in the hearing was appalling. They’d been asking for weeks to review, or have Perry review, portions of the grand jury transcripts. After Perry inspected the redacted transcripts, they pressed again for her to look at more complete versions.

“This experience is surreal, for a misdemeanor charge to have this severity of misconduct,” Joshua Herman, who represents Katherine “Kat” Abughazaleh, said. If Perry hadn’t “finally put her foot down,” the defendants “would be going to trial and this coverup would’ve continued,” he said.

Nancy DePodesta, a former federal prosecutor who represents defendant Michael Rabbitt, said “it was absolutely sickening” to hear the description.

Christopher Parente, a former federal prosecutor representing Brian Straw, said the four defendants — who all have ties to local politics — have a valid claim to money from the Justice Department’s new “anti-weaponization” fund.

“You have prosecutors going into the grand jury targeting political candidates and political figures improperly,” he said.

Boutros said at Thursday’s public hearing he was upset when he learned last month of the possible vouching and the ex parte communications at the grand jury. It was his decision, he said, to drop the felony charge in late April and proceed only on misdemeanors.

He was aware “in real time” that prosecutors had excused grand jurors, and after that he “immediately called off that grand jury session.” He also later issued guidance about what prosecutors should do “if there is tension in the grand jury,” he said.

Boutros also didn’t object to Parente’s request to take down a press release announcing the protesters’ indictment or add a note that the charges had been dropped.

The indictment was filed about a month after the September protest. Prosecutors initially charged six people with felony conspiracy as well as misdemeanor counts of impeding a federal officer.

Prosecutors later dropped all charges against two of the six defendants, leaving four to prepare for trial. Rabbitt is a Cook County Democratic ward committeeperson; Straw is a trustee of suburban Oak Park; Abughazaleh placed second in an Illinois Democratic congressional primary this year; and Andre Martin was on her campaign staff.

Rabbitt is represented by Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP. Abughazaleh is represented by Joshua Herman and Molly Armour of Chicago. Martin is represented by Cotsirilos, Poulos & Campbell, Ltd. Straw is represented by Cheronis & Parente LLC.

The case is United States v. Rabbitt, N.D. Ill., No. 1:25-cr-00693, hearing 5/21/26.