All remaining charges against four activists accused of protesting outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois, were dismissed Thursday by federal prosecutors in Chicago, following a judge's examination of grand jury misconduct allegations directed at the prosecutor's office, according to CBS News Chicago.
At a closed hearing concerning redacted grand jury transcripts, U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros said he had only recently learned of the alleged misconduct — which encompassed a prosecutor holding private meetings with a grand juror and the removal of jurors who expressed opposition to the charges before an indictment was ultimately returned. Boutros offered no challenge to those allegations, according to CNN.
During the sealed proceeding, Perry stated that nothing in her extensive experience reviewing grand jury transcripts — which she described as numbering in the hundreds or thousands — had prepared her for what she encountered in the records from this case, according to CBS News Chicago. Among the violations Perry outlined was what she called improper prosecutorial vouching — a practice in which the assistant U.S. attorney staked her own credibility on the validity of the charges — as well as the removal from deliberations of grand jurors who had been skeptical of the government's theory.
