Four remaining members of the so-called “Broadview Six” filed a motion Monday urging a federal judge to release grand jury transcripts, arguing that U.S. prosecutors have kept a felony conspiracy charge “alive and pending” after announcing that it would be dismissed.
The unredacted transcripts were set to be handed over last week to U.S. District Judge April Perry. Instead, prosecutors said they would drop the conspiracy charge at the center of the protest case, one of the most high-profile prosecutions stemming from the Operation Midway Blitz deportation campaign last year.
With the grand jury indictment seemingly dismissed, the judge decided she no longer needed to see the transcripts.
On Monday, defense attorneys for the four defendants said federal prosecutors are now keeping the conspiracy charge pending until misdemeanor charges of forcibly impeding a federal agent are settled at trial in less than a month. They filed a second motion Monday to dismiss the conspiracy charge.
Charged are formercongressionalcandidateKatAbughazaleh, Oak Park village trustee BrianStraw, 45th Ward Democratic committeeperson MichaelRabbittand Andre Martin, a member of Abughazaleh’s campaign staff.
Defense attorneys laid out three possibilities for what the unredacted transcripts could include: The assistant U.S. attorney either “mis-instructed” the grand jury on the law; failed to instruct the grand jury on the law at all; or there were other interactions between the assistant U.S. attorney and the grand jury that are “otherwise improper or prejudicial.”
The attorneys framed the prosecution as potentially politically motivated, tying it to the recent cases against former FBI Director James Comey and the Southern Poverty Law Center. They raised
