Federal prosecutors revealed Thursday that the government is dropping charges against several Illinois protestors who demonstrated against Immigration and Customs Enforcement last year.
U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros, Chicago’s top federal prosecutor, said he is dropping charges against the remaining “Broadview Six” defendants just days before their rare federal trial for misdemeanor charges, due to concerns about grand jury misconduct.
Charges of a single misdemeanor count of forcibly impeding a federal agent are being dismissed with prejudice against Kat Abughazaleh, Andre Martin, Brian Straw, and Michael Rabbitt. The development comes amid allegations that grand jury transcripts showed an initial grand jury refused to indict the defendants, and the case was later presented again after prosecutors dismissed certain grand jury members.
“No one acted with the intent to mislead your honor, and I think that they were following your order to give the law,” Boutros told U.S. District Judge April Perry, saying he became aware of the dismissal of grand jurors “in real time.”
“And as soon as I became aware of it, I called off that grand jury session,” Perry said.
The move means the trial that had been scheduled to begin next week was canceled, and that charges cannot be refiled against the four defendants.
The four defendants were among the demonstrators prosecutors targeted for their actions during an anti-ICE protest in the Chicago suburb of Broadview last fall. At the time, the city was embroiled in protests against the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigrants in the area. Six were originally charged in the Broadview incident. Federal prosecutors dropped all charges against two of the defendants in March and April.
“We didn’t deserve this,” Abughazaleh said after the hearing, according to WTTW, “and no one deserves this, and there are going to be more prosecutions like this unless sanctions are actually given.”
Abughazaleh was a one-time Democratic congressional candidate. Martin was on Abughazaleh’s campaign staff. Rabbitt is a Democratic committeeperson.
Prosecutors alleged that on Sept. 26, 2025, they surrounded an ICE agent’s van “with the intent to hinder and impede” alongside other demonstrators outside ICE’s west suburban processing facility.
In a video posted to her social media accounts that day, Abughazaleh and more than a dozen other protesters can be seen trying to physically prevent an SUV from entering the facility by pushing back on the car while chanting “up, up with liberation and down, down with deportations,” according to the outlet.
Boutros said the incident was “unacceptable in a civilized society. It is for the grace of God that that agent moved at 2 miles per hour.”
TRUMP DENIES AIRCRAFT CARRIER STRIKE GROUP DEPLOYMENT IS MEANT TO INTIMIDATE CUBA
Perry, the judge, slammed Boutros.
“You are significantly undercutting your mea culpa here by standing behind the charges and continuing to vilify these particular defendants,” he said.