Judge Hannah Dugan had just arrived for work at Milwaukee County Circuit Court on April 18, when she was informed that federal agents were waiting outside her courtroom. They were there to arrest an undocumented man, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, who was scheduled to appear before Dugan on a battery charge.
According to federal prosecutors, Dugan stepped out into the hall to question the agents before directing them to the office of the county’s chief judge down the hall. Dugan then allegedly sent Flores-Ruiz out a non-public door in an alleged attempt, authorities claim, to help him evade arrest on immigration violations. One officer who had returned to the hallway — and another who had never left — said in the criminal complaint they spotted the man leaving. Flores-Ruiz was captured outside the court building after a brief foot chase.
Dugan, 65, was arrested by the FBI a week later. She is charged in a two-count indictment with obstruction and concealing an individual to prevent the discovery and arrest of Flores-Ruiz. She has pleaded not guilty, and her lawyers contend she is immune from prosecution for official judicial acts.
Her attorneys have called her arrest “virtually unprecedented and “entirely unconstitutional,” according to court filings.
ABC News has obtained, through a public records request, video from more than two dozen surveillance cameras at the courthouse, capturing the movements of the judge, the plain-clothed agents and the man targeted for arrest. There is no audio on the surveillance footage.
The video is likely to be used by both prosecutors and defense attorneys as evidence in Dugan’s criminal case.
“The video is not conclusive, and I do think it tends to support whatever preconceptions people might have about the case,” said Dean Strang, an attorney for Dugan.
At least seven cameras on the sixth floor — where Dugan’s courtroom is located — captured portions of the relevant events.
Six federal agents, in plainclothes, are seen arriving in staggered pairs shortly after 8 a.m. and staking out positions throughout the hallway. One agent sat directly across from Dugan’s courtroom.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan, shown during a candidate forum in 2016.
Mike De Sisti/USA Today Network/Imagn Images/Reuters
Dugan arrived through a private entrance to her courtroom at 08:40 a.m., the videos show. Two minutes later, the agents spotted Flores-Ruiz entering Dugan’s courtroom through the main entrance.
The judge is then seen a minute later re-entering the hallway in her judicial robe, speaking to a pair of agents and then directing them and three others down the hall. According to the criminal complaint, the agents told Dugan they had an administrative warrant, typically issued by immigration authorities without sign-off by a court.
Authorities say Dugan allegedly insisted the agents needed a judicial warrant and told them to go see the chief judge about their planned operation. Federal authorities allege that witnesses described Dugan as having “confrontational, angry demeanor” when she approached the federal agents, according to a criminal complaint.
None of the videos released to ABC News shows the inside of Dugan’s courtroom during the few minutes that Flores-Ruiz was there. Prosecutors allege Dugan never called Flores-Ruiz’s case and directed him and his attorney out through a non-public door.
That door, as the videos show, was just a few feet from the main entrance to the judge’s courtroom and led to the same public hallway. One of the agents had never left the spot across from the courtroom. Another had returned from the chief judge’s office prior to Flores-Ruiz’s exit and followed him.
“If you’re predisposed to think that Judge Dugan did something criminal or wrongfully impeded ICE, you can find support for that preconception in the video. It’s not conclusive, but you’ll feel ratified,” Strang said. “If you start from thinking she didn’t do anything criminal, didn’t do anything wrong, you’ll find support for that in the video. For example, she does not appear to be angry. They don’t show her a warrant. The man comes out within a few minutes, ten or 15 feet from where the agents expected him, and two of them see him coming in the hallway.”
Dugan has assembled a high-powered defense team, which includes former United States Solicitor General Paul Clement, and Strang, who came to national prominence as one of the defense attorneys featured in the Netflix docu-series, “Making a Murderer.”
“Even if (contrary to what the trial evidence would show) Judge Dugan took the actions the complaint alleges, these plainly were judicial acts for which she has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution. Judges are empowered to maintain control over their courtrooms specifically and the courthouse generally,” her lawyers wrote earlier this month in a motion to dismiss the indictment.
Dugan entered a not guilty plea at a brief court appearance on May 15. She has remained free on her own recognizance and her trial is set for July.
