MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Wisconsin judge accused of helping a Mexican immigrant evade federal authorities is set to present her case as her trial on obstruction and concealment charges winds down.
Prosecutors rested their case against Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan on Wednesday after three days of testimony. Dugan’s defense attorneys said they planned to call four witnesses starting Thursday morning. It wasn’t clear whether Dugan would take the stand. Closing arguments could begin as early as Thursday afternoon.
The highly unusual charges against a sitting judge are an extraordinary consequence of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Dugan’s supporters say Trump is looking to make an example of her to blunt judicial opposition to immigration arrests.
Prosecutors have tried to show that Dugan intentionally interfered with members of a federal immigration task force’s efforts to arrest 31-year-old Eduardo Flores-Ruiz at the Milwaukee County Courthouse.
Members of the task force testified that they learned Flores-Ruiz was in the country illegally after he was arrested in Milwaukee on state battery charges. He was scheduled to appear for a hearing in front of Dugan on April 18. Six agents and officers staked out Dugan’s courtroom that morning, ready to arrest him when he emerged from the hearing.
They testified that Dugan and another judge, Kristela Cervera, stepped into the hallway wearing their robes. Dugan angrily told four members of the team to report to the chief judge’s office.
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As Cervera led them to the office, Dugan went back to her courtroom and led Flores-Ruiz out a private door into the hallway. Prosecutors produced transcripts of audio recordings from microphones in her courtroom that show Dugan told her court reporter that she’d take “the heat” for showing Flores-Ruiz out the private door.
Two agents Dugan missed during her confrontations with the team followed Flores-Ruiz outside and a foot chase through traffic ensued before he was finally arrested. Members of the team testified that Dugan divided them and forced them out of position, leaving them too short-handed to make a safe arrest in the hallway.
Cervera, for her part, testified that she was uncomfortable backing up Dugan during her confrontations with the arrest team. She said she was shocked when she heard Dugan led Flores-Ruiz out a private door, adding that judges shouldn’t help defendants evade arrest. Cervera also testified that Dugan told her three days after the incident that Dugan was “in the doghouse” with the chief judge, Carl Ashley, because she “tried to help that guy.”
Dugan’s attorneys have countered during cross-examinations that Dugan didn’t intend to obstruct the arrest team and was trying to follow a draft courthouse policy from Ashley that called for court employees to refer immigration agents looking to make an arrest in the courthouse to supervisors.
They’ve also argued that the arrest team could have apprehended Flores-Ruiz at any point after he emerged from the courtroom and Dugan shouldn’t be blamed for their decision to wait until he got outside.
