Recently released grand jury transcripts show the extreme lengths federal prosecutors went to in order to secure indictments against the "Br
On her second attempt to secure an indictment against a group of protesters who would come to be known as the “Broadview Six,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sheri Mecklenburg kicked out a grand juror who described the case as a “crock of shit,” according to grand jury transcripts released on Tuesday.
Prosecutors pursued the case anyway, accusing the group — which included Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh — of blocking an Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicle outside the Broadview detention center during an immigration crackdown in Chicago in late September of last year. On the third attempt, prosecutors secured felony conspiracy charges against all six defendants as well as misdemeanor counts of impeding a federal agent.
The case quickly fell apart: Earlier this year, prosecutors dismissed two of the defendants and dropped all felony charges, leaving only the misdemeanors. The case collapsed entirely last month, after a federal judge criticized prosecutors for improperly trying to influence grand jurors and removing those who disagreed with their case.
“I have read hundreds, if not thousands, of grand jury transcripts involving prosecutors who are the most junior of prosecutors to several U.S. attorneys who appeared before the grand jury,” U.S. District Judge April Perry said last month after reviewing the transcripts. “I have never seen the types of prosecutorial behavior before a grand jury that I saw in those transcripts.”
Those transcripts, released to the public on Tuesday, show the extreme lengths to which federal prosecutors went to indict the Broadview Six, even after grand jurors repeatedly expressed skepticism about the case.
