A veteran Wisconsin judge was arrested Friday on charges of helping a Mexican illegal migrant evade Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in her courtroom.
Judge Hannah Dugan, who has been on the Milwaukee County bench for nearly a decade, is accused of obstruction of justice and concealing Eduardo Flores-Ruiz from arrest following a pre-trial hearing last week.
Dugan appeared briefly in Milwaukee federal court Friday morning before being released after prosecutors said they would not ask for her detention before trial. Her arraignment has been set for May 15.
She faces a maximum of 10 years in prison if convicted on both counts. It was not immediately clear whether Dugan would be placed on leave during her case.
“Judge Dugan wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest. It was not made in the interest of public safety,” her attorney, Craig Mastantuono, said during the proceeding.
According to a criminal complaint obtained by The Post, an ICE officer and a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) official showed up outside Dugan’s courtroom April 18 with a warrant for Flores-Ruiz’s arrest for illegally entering the US, but were told by a security guard and a sheriff’s sergeant to wait outside until after the hearing.
The complaint noted that Flores-Ruiz, 30, had been deported from the US once before in 2013. It was not immediately clear when he crossed the border again, and there is no evidence he did so legally.
Flores-Ruiz was appearing before Dugan April 18 for a pre-trial conference on three misdemeanor battery charges stemming from a fight the previous month in which he was accused of punching another person 30 times after being accused of playing music too loudly, according to a police report obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The complaint states that while the team assigned to arrest Flores-Ruiz, which included FBI and DEA agents, waited for the hearing to conclude, they were photographed by a public defender, who informed Dugan’s clerk that “there appeared to be ICE agents in the hallway.”
After speaking with the clerk, Dugan “became visibly angry” and left the bench to confront the federal agents, according to an affidavit by a FBI special agent.
“Witnesses uniformly reported that Judge Dugan was visibly upset and had a confrontational, angry demeanor,” the statement read.
After initially demanding that the officers leave the building if they were not there for a court appearance, Dugan allegedly directed the federal agents away from her courtroom to Chief Judge Carl Ashley’s office after being shown the immigration warrant for Flores-Ruiz. --->READ MORE HERE
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Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan was charged April 25 with two felonies on allegations of trying to help an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest after he appeared in her courtroom.
According to a 13-page complaint, Dugan, 65, is accused of obstructing a U.S. agency and concealing an individual to prevent an arrest. The two charges carry a maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $350,000 fine, but sentences in cases involving nonviolent offenses typically are much shorter.
Specifically, the complaint says Dugan assisted Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, avoid being arrested by federal immigration officials at the Milwaukee County Courthouse after he appeared in her courtroom for a pretrial conference on April 18. Flores-Ruiz is facing three misdemeanor battery counts.
Two federal agents eventually chased Flores-Ruiz down outside the courthouse and apprehended him at West State Street and North 10th Street downtown, according to the complaint.
"Hannah C. Dugan has committed herself to the rule of law and the principles of due process for her entire career as a lawyer and a judge," an attorney for Dugan said in a statement. "Judge Dugan will defend herself vigorously, and looks forward to being exonerated."
Judge Dugan makes brief appearance in federal courtroom
On April 25, Dugan appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen C. Dries during a brief hearing in a packed courtroom at the federal courthouse. Dugan made no public comments during the brief hearing.
At the hearing, Dries asked if prosecutors were seeking detention, and they said they were not. He answered that he did not believe that the charges were “eligible” for detention. --->READ MORE HERE
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