A Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge has been indicted after being accused of helping an undocumented migrant flee arrest at her courthouse last month as President Donald Trump’s illegal immigration crackdown continues.
Judge Hannah Dugan, 66, was indicted Tuesday in federal court with obstructing or impeding a proceeding and concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest, the former charge a felony and the latter a misdemeanor.
The two charges carry a maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $350,000 fine.
She is expected to enter a plea at her next hearing set for Thursday.
Members of her defense team said in a short statement responding to the charges: “As she said after her unnecessary arrest, Judge Dugan asserts her innocence and looks forward to being vindicated in court.”
According to an affidavit filed by an FBI agent, the incident in question took place at the Milwaukee County Courthouse on April 18 when Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, 30, was expected to answer state-level misdemeanor charges of battery related to domestic violence.
When Dugan was informed by her clerk Alan Freed Jr that a group of six Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had arrived with the intention of arresting and deporting Flores-Ruiz, alleging that he had entered the United States from Mexico illegally in 2013, she became “visibly angry” and called the situation “absurd,” the affidavit states.
It goes on to allege that she told the agents, with a “confrontational, angry demeanor,” that their administrative warrant was insufficient and that they would instead need a judicial warrant, signed by a judge, directing them to follow fellow justice Kristela Cervera to County Chief Judge Carl Ashley’s office to take up the matter.
When all but one of the agents departed, the judge allegedly directed Flores-Ruiz and his then-attorney Mercedes de la Rosa to exit the building via its non-public jury door, telling the defendant he could participate in his scheduled hearing on Zoom at a later date.
After realizing what had happened, the remaining ICE agent and a colleague subsequently chased Flores-Ruiz and apprehended him at West State Street and North 10th Street downtown. He is currently being held at Ozaukee County Jail.
Federal authorities then returned a week later to arrest Dugan at the courthouse, an operation trumpeted on social media by FBI Director Kash Patel who shared a picture of her in handcuffs, seeking to deter others from following her example.
Dugan was suspended by the state Supreme Court and replaced by a reserve judge after her arrest.
ICE has attempted a number of arrests at Wisconsin courthouses, as well as others in Virginia, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, inviting pushback.
“When federal immigration enforcement takes place in our courthouse complex, it sends families into hiding, deters survivors of violence from seeking protection and discourages tenants from asserting their rights,” Milwaukee County Board Chair Marcelia Nicholson said prior to Dugan’s arrest.
The county’s Board of Supervisors subsequently approved a non-binding resolution stating that it “stands firm in its opposition to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operating outside the limits of the law in and around the Milwaukee County Courthouse Complex.”
