A federal grand jury indicted a Wisconsin judge Tuesday for allegedly helping an illegal immigrant evade federal authorities, the next step in the case after the FBI arrested the judge last month.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan was indicted on charges of obstruction and and concealing a person of arrest, for which she faces up to six years in prison if convicted. The Trump administration has defended its prosecution against Dugan, asserting that nobody is above the law.
“Judge Dugan asserts her innocence and looks forward to being vindicated in court,” her attorneys said Tuesday, suggesting she will fight the charges. Her first court appearance is expected to occur on Thursday. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has temporarily removed Dugan from her post with the case pending.
Dugan was arrested in April after allegedly misdirecting federal agents away from an illegal immigrant, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, who agents were pursuing, prosecutors said in a criminal complaint.
She allegedly did so by helping Ruiz through a jury door to help him escape a courthouse on foot, but her efforts fell short when he was caught shortly thereafter.
“Despite having been advised of the administrative warrant for the arrest of Flores-Ruiz, Judge Dugan then escorted Flores-Ruiz and his counsel out of the courtroom through the ‘jury door,’ which leads to a nonpublic area of the courthouse,” the complaint reads.
Ruiz was at the courthouse for a hearing in a domestic abuse case and Dugan was allegedly aware of ICE agents’s plan to execute an arrest warrant against him.
“I can confirm that our @FBI agents just arrested Hannah Dugan – a county judge in Milwaukee – for allegedly helping an illegal alien avoid an arrest by @ICEgov. No one is above the law,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said upon Dugan’s arrest.
Democrats have attempted to make Dugan the latest figurehead for their opposition to Trump’s agenda and accused Trump of waging lawfare against his political opponents. Trump’s defenders have shared images of his August 2023 mugshot in Georgia to counter liberal claims of weaponized government. Trump commonly accused Democrats of waging lawfare against him as he fought against civil and criminal cases brought by Democratic local prosecutors and the Biden Justice Department.
Dugan’s arrest is not the only high-profile arrest in connection with Democratic attempts to protest the Trump administration’s plan to mass deport illegal aliens. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D), a New Jersey gubernatorial candidate, was arrested last week following a dispute with federal agents at an ICE detention facility. His arrest took place around the time three House Democrats from Jersey appeared to join a group of left-wing protestors in clashing with federal agents at the facility as they sought to tour it for congressional oversight purposes.