Wisconsin judge indicted in federal court following accusations of obstructing immigration agents
By Taylor Romine and Andi Babineau, CNN
(CNN) — A Milwaukee County Circuit judge was indicted in federal court Tuesday following accusations that she helped an undocumented immigrant evade federal agents last month.
Judge Hannah Dugan was indicted on charges of obstruction and concealing an individual from arrest, the same charges she was originally arrested and charged with.
Her attorney said in a statement on her behalf Tuesday that Dugan “asserts her innocence and looks forward to being vindicated in court.”
Dugan is accused of helping a defendant in her courtroom evade immigration officials stationed to arrest him in the hallway outside.
The affidavit states Dugan “became visibly angry, commented that the situation was ‘absurd,’ left the bench, and entered chambers,” after learning the plainclothes agents were in the courthouse April 18.
Witnesses said she confronted the federal agents in a public hallway, repeatedly demanded they leave and said they needed a different kind of warrant to make the arrest, according to court documents. She reportedly also involved the courthouse’s chief judge in the matter.
When she returned to her courtroom, witnesses told investigators she stopped the man and his attorney from exiting through the main doors into the hall and instead escorted them out through a jury door. Agents caught up with the man outside and he was arrested after a brief foot chase, the document says.
She made her first appearance on April 25 and was released on her own recognizance. Craig Mastantuono, Dugan’s attorney, said during that appearance that “Judge Dugan wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest. It was not made in the interest of public safety,” the Associated Press reported.
She is due in court on Thursday.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled at the end of April Dugan would be “temporarily prohibited from exercising the powers of a circuit court judge” as the case moves through the legal system, court records show.
“It is in the public interest that she be temporarily relieved of her official duties,” the court said in a two-page order.
CNN’s Jennifer Feldman contributed to this report
Correction: An earlier version of this story had the wrong day for Judge Hannah Dugan’s indictment. It was Tuesday.
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