Wisconsin Judge Pleads Not Guilty to Helping Illegal Immigrant Man Evade Agents

Judge Hannah Dugan’s attorneys also submitted a motion to dismiss the case after her arrest in April.

Judge Hannah Dugan in Milwaukee, Wis., in 2016. Lee Matz/Milwaukee Independent via AP

A Wisconsin judge on Thursday pleaded not guilty to federal charges that alleged she helped an illegal immigrant evade agents earlier this year.

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan entered her not guilty plea during her arraignment hearing in a federal courthouse in Milwaukee, according to reporters in the courtroom. It came about a day after her attorneys moved to submit court papers to dismiss the case.

Prosecutors charged Dugan with obstruction and concealing an individual to prevent his arrest. She is accused of escorting a Mexican national and illegal immigrant, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, who was slated to appear before her on separate misdemeanor battery charges, out of a back door of a courtroom after she learned that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were waiting to detain him.

Dugan’s attorneys said in the motion to dismiss that she is innocent and was acting in her official capacity as a judge, meaning she cannot be prosecuted. They also claim that the federal government violated Wisconsin’s state sovereignty by disrupting a state courtroom and prosecuting a state judge.

Court documents say that Flores-Ruiz illegally reentered the United States after being deported in 2013. Other court records show he was charged with three counts of misdemeanor domestic abuse in Milwaukee County in March, and he was in Dugan’s courtroom on April 18 for a hearing in that case when she allegedly escorted him through a jury area before he escaped.

Federal agents arrested him after a short foot chase near the Milwaukee courthouse, according to an FBI affidavit that was submitted in Dugan’s case. A special agent for the law enforcement agency said that Dugan appeared visibly angry when the federal agents showed up, before she told them to speak to the court’s chief judge.

Witnesses said that Dugan and another judge, who was not named, also approached the federal agents in an “angry” and “confrontational” manner, the affidavit said.

In a motion to dismiss submitted on Wednesday, Dugan’s attorneys argued that it is “no ordinary criminal case, and Dugan is no ordinary criminal defendant,” while citing her job as a circuit court judge.

“The government’s prosecution of Judge Dugan is virtually unprecedented and entirely unconstitutional—it violates the Tenth Amendment and fundamental principles of federalism and comity reflected in that amendment and in the very structure of the United States Constitution,” the attorneys stated.

Her arrest was announced by both FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi. Meanwhile, Democrats in Wisconsin said that her arrest suggests that the Trump administration is threatening to overstep its authority.

“The President’s administration arresting a sitting judge is a gravely serious and drastic move, and it threatens to breach those very separations of power,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) said in a statement in April.

At the same time, Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said in a statement that it’s part of an alleged effort by the White House to “undermine our judiciary at every level.”

The same week that Dugan was arrested, a New Mexico judge was arrested for allegedly harboring an illegal immigrant accused of being a Venezuelan gang member in a building on his property. Days before that, the state’s Supreme Court ordered separately that the judge, Joel Cano, could not serve as a judge anywhere in the state.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.