MILWAUKEE (AP) — A colleague of the Milwaukee judge accused of helping a Mexican immigrant evade arrest testified Tuesday that she was shocked by her fellow judge’s behavior.
“Judges shouldn’t help defendants evade arrest,” Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Kristela Cervera testified at Hannah Dugan’s trial.
The testimony on the second day of trial came after officers involved in the arrest told the jury that Dugan’s behavior on April 18 made it more dangerous for them to do their jobs.
Dugan is on trial on charges of obstruction and concealment in connection with the incident. The maximum sentence for obstruction, the more serious charge, is five years in prison, though federal judges have much discretion to go lower.
The highly unusual charges against a sitting judge are an extraordinary consequence of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Dugan’s supporters say Trump is looking to make an example of her to blunt judicial opposition to immigration arrests.
Eduardo Flores-Ruiz was scheduled to appear before Dugan on the morning of April 18 on state battery charges. Prosecutors allege that after Dugan learned that federal officers were in the hallway waiting to arrest him, she cleared a path for him to escape by directing the officers to the chief judge’s office and then leading Eduardo-Flores out of her courtroom through a private door.
Cervera testified that she was irritated that Dugan used her as backup during the incident, making her come out of her courtroom into the hallway while still wearing her robe.
Dugan proceeded to angrily confront two officers waiting to arrest Flores-Ruiz, telling them repeatedly that they needed a judicial warrant before sending them to the chief judge’s chambers, Cervera testified. She escorted the officers to the chambers while Dugan returned to her courtroom, she said.
Dugan approached her three days later and said she was “in the doghouse” with the chief judge, saying something to the effect that the chief was upset with her because she had “tried to help that guy,” Cervera testified.
When she learned that Dugan had led Flores-Ruiz out the private door, “I was shocked,” Cervera testified.
FBI agent Phillip Jackling testified on Tuesday that he was concerned that his team was divided when Dugan directed agents to speak with the chief judge.
Dugan appeared angry when she approached him in the hallway outside her courtroom, he said. Another member of the arrest team, Customs and Border Protection Supervisory Officer Joseph Zuraw, said Dugan jerked her thumb over her shoulder and told him to “get out” before directing him to the chief judge’s chambers.
Four of the arrest team’s six members were in the chief judge’s chambers or a hallway leading to the chambers when Flores-Ruiz left the courtroom, the agents testified. Zuraw said he remembered thinking: “This is a bad spot we’re in right now. It’s a bad spot because we don’t’ have a decent number of officers to safely make an arrest.”
The team followed him outside the courthouse and had to chase him down through traffic when they could have safely arrested him in the building, they testified.
Dugan’s defense team has suggested that agents could have arrested Flores-Ruiz at any point in the hallway and Dugan shouldn’t be blamed for their decision to wait until he was outside.
Defense attorney Steven Biskupic said in opening statements that the judge had no intention of obstructing agents. He said that Dugan was just following a draft courthouse policy that called for court personnel to refer immigration agents looking to make an arrest in the courthouse to supervisors.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced in November that Flores-Ruiz had been deported.
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Associated Press writer Scott Bauer contributed to this report from Madison, Wisconsin.