Newly released video shows the few moments that a circuit court judge in Wisconsin helped a dangerous illegal alien flee her courthouse from federal agents in Milwaukee on April 18.
The video shows not only Hannah Dugan of the Milwaukee County Circuit Court confronting the agents, but also the Mexican illegal alien, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, leaving the courthouse. Federal agents chased and apprehended him.
Dugan is one of two judges in hot water for helping an illegal alien.
Attempted Escape
What might be the beginning of the end of Dugan’s career as a pettifogging lawyer and far-left, pro-illegal-alien judge was a very big mistake on her part.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agents landed at Dugan’s courthouse that day to arrest Flores-Ruiz. The judge was apparently unconcerned about warnings from border czar Tom Homan that state and local officials who obstruct Immigration and Customs Enforcement will be prosecuted.
Learning that federal agents were in the building, Dugan “became visibly angry, commented that the situation was ‘absurd,’ left the bench, and entered chambers,” the FBI’s criminal complaint alleges. “At the time, Flores-Ruiz was seated in the gallery of the courtroom.”
Dugan angrily confronted an ICE agent in the hall outside her courtroom. When the agent said he was there to make a lawful arrest on an administration warrant, Dugan told him he needed a “judicial warrant” and must see the circuit court’s chief judge.
“Multiple witnesses have described their observations after Judge Dugan returned to her courtroom after directing members of the arrest team to the Chief Judge’s office,” the criminal complaint says:
For example, the courtroom deputy recalled that upon the courtroom deputy’s return to the courtroom, defense counsel for Flores-Ruiz was talking to the clerk, and Flores-Ruiz was seated in the jury box, rather than in the gallery. The courtroom deputy believed that counsel and the clerk were having an off-the-record conversation to pick the next court date. Defense counsel and Flores-Ruiz then walked toward each other and toward the public courtroom exit. The courtroom deputy then saw Judge Dugan get up and heard Judge Dugan say something like “Wait, come with me.”
Despite having been advised of the administrative warrant for the arrest of Flores-Ruiz, Judge Dugan then escorted Flores-Ruiz and his counsel out of the courtroom through the “jury door,” which leads to a nonpublic area of the courthouse. …
Judge Dugan commanded Flores-Ruiz’s attorney and [Flores-Ruiz] to leave through a backdoor of the courtroom. … [A witness] saw Judge Dugan escort Flores-Ruiz’s attorney and [Flores-Ruiz] through a non-public door near the courtroom’s jury box. Shortly thereafter, Judge Dugan came back to the courtroom and conducted hearings on that morning’s docket.
The Video
The crystal-clear video offers visual details.
Accompanied by his attorney, Flores-Ruiz passes two plainclothes federal agents in the hall outside Dugan’s courtroom. Accompanied by another judge, Dugan appears and, like a viral-video angry Karen, points her finger at the agents. They leave the area.
The video then shows Flores-Ruiz and his attorney leaving Dugan’s courtroom through the jury door, passing through the same hallway where the two agents were. A third agent follows the two onto an elevator, then out of the courthouse. Flores-Ruiz ran, but was unable to escape the agents.
Federal authorities charged Dugan with two crimes: violating 18 U.S. Code 1505 and 18 U.S. Code 1071. The first crime, felony obstruction, carries up to a five-year stretch in prison; the second, misdemeanor concealing an individual, is punishable by one to five years in prison.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court almost immediately suspended Dugan.
For his part, Flores-Ruiz wasn’t in court on a minor offense. He is accused of a serious crime, which makes Dugan’s attempt to help him escape all the more shocking.
“This guy was in court being prosecuted by a state prosecutor for domestic violence battery,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News:
He had beat up 2 people, a guy and a girl. Hit the guy 30 times, knocked him to the ground, choked him, beat up a woman so badly they both had to go to the hospital. … He had been deported in 2013, came back in our country … charged with committing these crimes. Victims in court. .. Judge finds out. … She comes back in the courtroom — you’re not going to believe this — takes the defendant and the defense attorney back in her chambers, takes them out a private exit and tells them to leave, while a state prosecutor and victims of domestic violence are sitting in the courtroom.
New Mexico Judge
Dugan isn’t the only judge in trouble for helping an illegal alien. Jose Cano, a magistrate judge in Las Cruces, New Mexico, harbored an illegal-alien gang suspect on his property.
Federal authorities allege that Cano hosted Tren de Aragua terror gang suspect Cristhian Ortega-Lopez. The Justice Department alleges that Cano
admitted to destroying Ortega’s cellphone by smashing it with a hammer approximately five weeks prior, believing it contained incriminating photos and videos of Ortega with firearms.
On that phone, which Cano “walked … to a city dumpster,” Bondi said, were photos of decapitated murder victims.
Also arrested in that case was Cano’s wife, Nancy.
The couple face 20 years in federal prison for evidence tampering.
