A county judge in Wisconsin pleaded not guilty in federal court on Thursday after she was formally charged with obstructing the arrest of an undocumented immigrant inside a courthouse last month.
A grand jury indictment unsealed this week accuses Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan with obstructing or impeding a proceeding, which is a felony. She was also accused of concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest, a misdemeanor.
The two charges carry a maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $350,000 fine.
Dugan pleaded not guilty to both charges during her appearance in federal court on Thursday morning.
Magistrate Judge Stephen Dries has tentatively scheduled a July trial date.
Dugan’s high-profile arrest — and Donald Trump’s administration promotion of the accusations against her — has escalated the president’s attacks against the judiciary and the judge he perceives are impeding his aggressive anti-immigration agenda.
According to an affidavit filed by an FBI agent, Dugan is accused of helping an immigrant who faced state-level misdemeanor charges evade arrest from federal law enforcement officers.
On April 18, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz was expected to answer state-level misdemeanor charges of battery related to domestic violence. When her clerk informed the judge that agents were inside the courthouse with the intent to arrest Flores-Ruiz, who entered the country without legal permission in 2013, Dugan became “visibly angry” and called the situation “absurd,” according to the affidavit.
She confronted agents in a “confrontational, angry demeanor,” according to the document. She noted that their administrative warrant was insufficient and that they would instead need a judicial warrant, signed by a judge, and directed them to the county chief judge’s office.
The affidavit then claims that Dugan directed Flores-Ruiz and his attorney to exit the courthouse through a jury door and told him that he can attend a scheduled hearing on Zoom at a later date.
A federal agent was in an elevator with Flores-Ruiz and his attorney, but agents then chased him out of the courthouse to make an arrest.
Federal authorities returned a week later to arrest Dugan and lead her in handcuffs out of the courthouse, which FBI director and far-right conspiracy theorist Kash Patel shared on social media.
Dugan was released from detention after her initial appearance in federal court, but she was suspended from the bench in late April by the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Flores-Ruiz, meanwhile, is jailed inside an immigration detention center.
On Wednesday, Dugan’s attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the charges, claiming that the “government cannot prosecute Judge Dugan because she is entitled to judicial immunity for her official acts.”
“Since at least the early 17th century in England, and carried on through common law in the United States, judges of record have been entitled to absolute immunity for official acts with a few exceptions not applicable here,” according to Dugan’s attorneys.
Trump’s efforts to prosecute judges is “virtually unprecedented and entirely unconstitutional,” they added.
The motion cites the Supreme Court’s decision affirming presidential “immunity” from criminal prosecution for actions in office — a ruling that effectively prevented Trump from facing any consequences in the cases against him.
Earlier this month, more than 150 former state and federal judges joined a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi blasting Dugan’s case as an attempt to intimidate the judiciary.
“This cynical effort undermines the rule of law and destroys the trust the American people have in the nation’s judges to administer justice in the courtrooms and in the halls of justice across the land,” they wrote.
