The federal government’s prosecution of five activists who protested outside an ICE detention facility in Broadview, Illinois, collapsed in late May after a federal judge uncovered evidence that prosecutors improperly manipulated the grand jury process and concealed information from the court. U.S. District Judge April M Perry, during a May 21 hearing days before the scheduled trial, said prosecutors had tried to influence grand jurors, communicated with them about substantive matters outside the grand jury room, and removed jurors who disagreed with the government’s case.
“All of this was redacted out of the versions of the transcripts that I got,” Perry said at the hearing, according to court records. Defense attorneys had urged Perry to review the full grand jury transcripts after the government initially provided a redacted version with missing pages.
The case against the five defendants — Michael Rabbitt, Kat Abughazaleh, and three others — stemmed from protests in September 2025 at an ICE processing facility in Broadview, a Chicago suburb. The demonstrations occurred during a period of heightened immigration enforcement under Operation Midway Blitz, the Trump administration’s sweeping deportation campaign across Chicago. The activists were accused of illegally blocking an ICE vehicle, a charge they denied.
The prosecution was already faltering before the judge’s intervention. Prosecutors dismissed two defendants in March and dropped all felony charges against the remaining four in April, leaving only misdemeanor counts for trial. The final collapse came after Perry reviewed unredacted grand jury transcripts that revealed what she described as improper conduct.
Court records show that three separate grand juries considered the case. The first returned a “no bill,” refusing to indict. The second abruptly ended mid-testimony and also returned a no bill. The case was presented a third time before an indictment was secured. Ron Safer, who served as chief of the criminal division for the U.S. attorney’s office in the Northern District of Illinois in the 1990s, said no bills are rare and two on a single case is unheard of.
“If we had three no bills in 30 years, I would be surprised,” Safer said.
After dismissing the case, Boutros announced sweeping changes to how his office would handle grand jury procedures. He also issued a rare special report that put additional grand jury material into public view. Boutros confirmed that he had spoken with the grand jurors who later handed up the indictment but insisted his remarks were within the bounds of fairness.
Defense attorneys disputed that characterization. Chris Parente, the attorney for co-defendant Brian Straw and a former federal prosecutor himself, said in a statement that Boutros asked grand jurors who had previously refused to return an indictment to “raise their hand” if they had personal feelings on immigration cases and informed them there would be a “different procedure” for them. Parente said it was not coincidence that the grand jury Boutros addressed was the one that handed up an indictment.
A representative for Boutros’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Boutros later released a statement thanking supporters and criticizing those he said were trying to “destabilize the office, distract us from our mission, and wreak discord among our once-united AUSA and law enforcement community.” Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a statement supporting Boutros, saying his office “fully supports US attorney Boutros and his efforts to combat violent crime, drug trafficking, immigration violations and fraud.”
The case has drawn attention from Illinois’s U.S. senators. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth called on Boutros to resign. The assistant U.S. attorney accused of improper influence was fired from a new role, and other cases involving the Broadview Six prosecutors have faced legal jeopardy. Perry is considering sanctions against the prosecutors.
For the defendants, the dismissal of charges has not restored their lives. Abughazaleh, 27, a former congressional candidate, said she lost 15 pounds, her sleep disorder worsened, and she still has nightmares from the stress of the case. She and her co-defendants collectively owe more than $1 million in legal fees, she said.
“That’s not a happy ending, it’s just an ending,” Abughazaleh said. “It’s not justice, but it is a win.”
Rabbitt, 62, a business administrator and Cook County Democratic Party committee member, was in Portugal celebrating his 30th wedding anniversary when he received messages from the FBI informing him he was under federal indictment and ordered to surrender the next day. He said the prosecution revived childhood trauma from watching his father, former Missouri House Speaker Richard J. Rabbitt, serve 16 months in federal prison on charges that were mostly overturned.
Rabbitt has raised about $86,000 through a legal defense fund against an estimated $300,000 legal bill. He described the case as having been brought in bad faith.
Safer, the former federal prosecutor, said the case’s collapse has broader implications. “The public has seen that the highest levels of government have described people as ‘terrorists’ who were doing nothing more than peacefully exercising their first amendment rights,” Safer said. “Now there’s a dissonance — we can’t believe what we’re being told. That will have, in my view, a corrosive effect on law enforcement’s ability to enforce real crime for decades.”