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The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested a Milwaukee County Circuit judge Friday, FBI Director Kash Patel said on social media, accusing her of helping an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest.
Judge Hannah Dugan is facing two charges for obstruction and concealing the individual from arrest, a law enforcement official told CNN.
“We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, allowing the subject — an illegal alien — to evade arrest,” Patel’s post read. “Thankfully our agents chased down the perp on foot and he’s been in custody since, but the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public.”
Dugan was held in federal custody this morning before her initial appearance in court, after which she was released, according to the AP. Her attorney said during the hearing that “Judge Dugan wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest. It was not made in the interest of public safety.”
The arrest on federal charges is an escalation in the Trump administration’s focus on judges’ conduct, particularly as it relates to immigration enforcement. The Justice Department has repeatedly asserted that it will investigate any local officials who do not assist federal authorities on immigration matters.
Dugan’s criminal complaint accuses the judge of becoming “visibly angry” after learning immigration officers were outside her court room intending to arrest a man whose case she was overseeing, and then directing the man through a non-public “jury door” to avoid his detention.
According to the complaint, six members of a federal immigration task force had planned to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz after he was scheduled for a pre-trial conference in Dugan’s courtroom in a domestic battery case.
Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican immigrant, had been issued an order of removal from the United States in 2013 and was removed from the country through Arizona. Immigration officials learned he was back in the country illegally after his fingerprints and photographs were taken after his recent arrest and compared to his alien registration file.
The immigration officers, who were “generally dressed in plain clothes,” according tot he complaint, arrived at a Milwaukee courthouse last Friday, showed a security guard their identification and said they were at the courthouse to make an arrest. The officers also spoke with a shift supervisor at the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office, who told them to wait until after Flores-Ruiz’s hearing to conclude before they arrested him, the complaint said.
While the officers were waiting outside the courtroom, a woman who was later identified as an employee with the Wisconsin Public Defender’s Office took their picture, court records show. A courtroom deputy later told the officers that the woman approached Dugan’s bench, told her ICE agents were outside her courtroom, and showed the judge the picture she just took.
Dugan and another judge then approached the officers in the hallway. The document said witnesses reported Dugan, who had a “confrontational, angry demeanor,” demanded the agents leave the courthouse.
Agents told the judge they were there to “effectuate an arrest” and showed her an administrative warrant. Dugan told them to speak with the chief judge and led some members of the arrest team away from her courtroom. Several witnesses – including the judge’s courtroom deputy and both the prosecutor and the victim witness specialist on Flores-Ruiz’s case – recounted seeing Dugan, once she had returned to her courtroom, direct Flores-Ruiz and his attorney to leave through a “jury door,” which leads to a nonpublic area of the courthouse, court documents say.
Agents later noticed Flores-Ruiz and his attorney walking “briskly” toward an elevator bank. They exited the building while agents “scrambled” to catch up to them, according to the court document. Agents found Flores-Ruiz outside the courthouse and identified themselves. He took off running but was eventually captured.
CNN has reached out to Flores-Ruiz’s attorney for comment. Flores-Ruiz has not yet entered a plea and is being detained, according to his federal court record. This would be a separate case from the alleged charges for Dugan.
Democratic Rep. Gwen Moore, whose district includes Milwaukee, described Dugan’s arrest as “shocking” in a statement and said it has “all the hallmarks of overreach.”
“Federal law enforcement coming into a community and arresting a judge is a serious matter and would require high legal bar,” said Moore, adding she was “very alarmed at this increasingly lawless actions of the Trump Administration, and in particular ICE, who have been defying courts and acting with disregard for the Constitution.”
This story has been updated with additional development.
