Chicago's top federal prosecutor permanently dismissed the remaining charges against the Broadview Six on Thursday after a judge said she was stunned by what she read in grand jury transcripts from the case. U.S. District Judge April Perry said she had never seen the kinds of prosecutorial behavior before a grand jury that appeared in those records.
The case began with protests outside the Broadview ICE facility in September 2025 during Operation Midway Blitz and had been nearing trial. Perry said the troubling conduct had been redacted from the transcripts the federal government gave her, and defense lawyers said the allegations sounded unheard of, warped and gross. They said they would pursue sanctions based on prosecutorial misconduct.
Andrew Boutros said he learned about what happened three weeks before the hearing and did not believe any member of his staff had intentionally misled the judge. But Perry was not satisfied with the explanation. She told him, in effect, that he was significantly undercutting his mea culpa by standing behind the charges and continuing to vilify the defendants. Perry also said that trust had been broken.
The defendants are the four remaining members of the Broadview Six, after six protesters were originally swept into the case. Perry said there might be talk of sanctions for prosecutors down the road, a warning that leaves the dismissal far from the end of the dispute. Defense attorney Christopher Parente said he had never even heard of something as bad as what took place in the grand jury session, while Nancy DePodesta said it was absolutely sickening to listen to Perry describe it.
The fallout reaches beyond the courtroom. Sheri Mecklenberg left the U.S. Attorney's Office in February 2026 to serve as counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and on May 22, 2026, Dick Durbin terminated her detail after the allegations became public. Mecklenberg said she was not trying to deflect blame, but that she had been with a 20-years-plus senior veteran, underscoring how the controversy has spread through both the Justice Department and the Senate side of the Capitol.
With the charges gone, the immediate criminal fight is over. The sharper question now is whether the grand jury conduct Perry condemned so forcefully will bring sanctions against the prosecutors who handled the case.
