Officers say at trial of Milwaukee judge her actions made their job more dangerous

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Prosecutors worked Tuesday to paint a Milwaukee judge accused of helping an immigrant evade arrest as rudely approaching federal officers and making it more dangerous for them to do their jobs.

The second day of Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan’s trial Tuesday has focused on her interactions with officers in the courthouse.

Dugan is on trial on charges of obstruction and concealment for her role in the April incident in the courthouse. Prosecutors say that after she learned federal authorities were waiting outside her courtroom to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, she cleared a path for his escape by directing the agents to the chief judge’s office and leading Flores-Ruiz out of her courtroom through a private door.

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.

FBI agent Phillip Jackling testified on Tuesday that he was concerned that his team was divided when Dugan directed agents to speak with the chief judge.

He said Dugan appeared angry when she approached him in the hallway outside her courtroom. Another member of the arrest team, Customs and Border Protection Supervisory Officer Joseph Zuraw, said Dugan jerked her thumb over her shoulder and told him to “get out” before directing him to the chief judge’s chambers.

Five of the arrest team’s six members were in the chief judge’s chambers or a hallway leading to the chambers when Flores-Ruiz left the courtroom, the agents testified. Zuraw said he remembered thinking: “This is a bad spot we’re in right now. It’s a bad spot because we don’t’ have a decent number of officers to safely make an arrest.”

The team followed him outside the courthouse and had to chase him down through traffic when they could have safely arrested him in the building, they testified.

Dugan’s defense attorneys have suggested that agents could have arrested Flores-Ruiz at any point in the hallway and Dugan shouldn’t be blamed for their decision to wait until he was outside.

Prosecutors are trying to convince the jury in federal court that Dugan knew the stakes of her actions when she directed an immigrant to a private door while federal agents were in the courthouse to arrest the man.

“I’ll get the heat,” Dugan told her court reporter as they discussed who would assist Flores-Ruiz, according to courtroom audio played for the jury on Monday.

Defense attorney Steven Biskupic said in opening statements that the judge had no intention of obstructing agents. He said that Dugan was just following a draft courthouse policy that called for court personnel to refer immigration agents looking to make an arrest in the courthouse to supervisors.

Flores-Ruiz was facing state battery charges and was scheduled to appear at a hearing in front of Dugan the morning of the incident. After his arrest by officers that morning, he was deported months later.

The government’s case is expected to run through Thursday.

The maximum sentence for the more serious charge, obstruction, is five years in prison, though federal judges have much discretion to go lower.

Ahead of the trial, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman declined to dismiss the charges, saying there was no firmly established immunity for Dugan.