The federal case against six anti-ICE protesters known as the "Broadview Six" has collapsed after U.S. District Judge April Perry dismissed all charges with prejudice, citing serious prosecutorial misconduct during the grand jury proceedings.

The six defendants were arrested in September 2025 following a protest outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. Prosecutors alleged the group surrounded an ICE agent's vehicle and banged on its windows, hood, and doors while crowding together to impede its movement. The federal government initially brought felony conspiracy charges carrying a maximum sentence of six years in prison. Prosecutors first dropped charges against two defendants, Catherine Sharp and Joselyn Walsh, then abandoned conspiracy charges against the remaining four, attempting instead to convict them of a single misdemeanor count each for impeding a federal agent.

Judge Perry dismissed even those reduced charges after reviewing unredacted grand jury transcripts. She said she was "incredibly shocked" by what she found, stating she had read hundreds or thousands of grand jury transcripts over her career and had never seen the level of prosecutorial misconduct revealed in these records. Her trust in the presumption of regularity, the principle that government attorneys act properly unless shown otherwise, was broken.

The misconduct identified by the court included a prosecutor staking personal credibility to support the charges, improper communications with grand jurors outside the grand jury room, and the excusing of grand jurors who disagreed with the government's case. The first grand jury session resulted in no indictment. A second session ended abruptly during testimony. It took three sessions before an indictment was secured, after prosecutors removed certain grand jury members who disagreed with pursuing charges. Prosecutors had also redacted and removed pages from the grand jury transcripts provided to the court, which Judge Perry said appeared designed to conceal what happened.

U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros appeared in court on May 21, 2026, to announce the dismissal on the eve of trial. He denied any intentional wrongdoing by his prosecutors but acknowledged Judge Perry was understandably upset. He said he sincerely believed none of his prosecutors acted intentionally to mislead the court. However, he also stated he stood by the original criminal charges, prompting Judge Perry to say he had undercut his own apology by continuing to vilify the defendants. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Skiba pointed to former colleague Sheri Mecklenburg, who left the U.S. Attorney's Office in February to serve as counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, as the senior prosecutor responsible for much of the improper conduct. Mecklenburg was later terminated from her role with the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Defense attorney Christopher Parente, a former federal prosecutor representing defendant Brian Straw, alleged that Boutros had personal contact with the grand jury that heard the case and requested that prosecutors disclose the nature of those interactions. The U.S. Attorney's Office responded that any appearances before grand juries were in Boutros's capacity as Chief Legal Advisor to the federal grand juries of the district, including welcoming newly impaneled jurors and advising on the general role and function of the grand jury system. Judge Perry summoned lawyers to discuss the matter privately in her chamber. Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur indicated prosecutors would likely agree to release grand jury transcripts, subject to redactions to protect juror identities.

Defense attorneys called the conduct shameful and accused prosecutors of engaging in a cover-up. Nancy DePodesta, representing defendant Michael Rabbitt, said there were no words to describe the conduct. Parente said he had never heard of anything as bad in his 15 years as a prosecutor. The defendants included Kat Abughazaleh, a former congressional candidate, Andre Martin, Brian Straw, an Oak Park Village Board trustee, and Michael Rabbitt, a 45th Ward Democratic committeeperson. Abughazaleh said the prosecution amounted to financial and psychological torture and that demonstrating its unjust nature had been the point all along.

Judge Perry floated the possibility of a separate hearing on sanctions against the U.S. Attorney's Office for ethical violations and told defense attorneys they might be entitled to a hearing on whether the case constituted vindictive prosecution. Defense lawyers said they would seek sanctions to recover legal fees and planned to file a claim with the Department of Justice's anti-weaponization fund. They are continuing to push for the full release of grand jury transcripts and audio recordings, saying the public deserves context about what happened. Prosecutors said they do not object to the public release of most transcripts, with limited redactions. Judge Perry agreed to unseal the transcript of the hearing where the misconduct allegations were discussed.

The case has been a setback for Boutros' office, which has struggled to secure convictions in cases tied to "Operation Midway Blitz." Multiple cases have already been dismissed before trial, and the one case that did go to a jury resulted in a full acquittal. Defense attorneys had previously questioned whether the charges were politically driven by the Trump administration, though prosecutors said they received no such direction from Washington.

Legal observers point to the case as part of a broader pattern of judicial pushback against the Justice Department's handling of high-profile cases, with multiple courts finding that prosecutors have acted more like political actors than neutral officers of the court. In a separate case in Virginia, a federal judge previously identified a disturbing pattern of investigative missteps by prosecutors in the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. The dismissal is expected to fuel ongoing debates about accountability within the Justice Department and could encourage other defendants to challenge their cases on similar grounds.

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