Crime & Law
Judge Agrees to Toss Top Conspiracy Count in ‘Broadview Six’ Case
Congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh, left, is seen along with a crowd around a vehicle on Sept. 26, 2025, outside the Broadview ICE facility. (Credit: Kat Abughazaleh)
The remaining four defendants in the “Broadview Six” criminal case no longer face felony charges after a federal judge Thursday morning officially dismissed the top count in the politically charged case.
U.S. District Judge April Perry granted a motion presented by federal prosecutors this week to dismiss the felony conspiracy count with prejudice — meaning it cannot be refiled — in response to concerns raised by defense attorneys and to avoid what the feds claimed would “surely be further unnecessary and time-consuming litigation, not to mention a waste of this Court’s resources.”
“Congratulations,” Perry told the defendants during Thursday’s hearing, “you are all no longer charged with felonies.”
The charges stem from a confrontation on Sept. 26, 2025, between protesters and federal agents outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility in west suburban Broadview.
An initial indictment against the group alleged they conspired to surround an Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicle, “with the intent to hinder and impede” a federal agent from proceeding to the Broadview facility and “discharging the duties of his office.”
Already prosecutors dismissed all charges against two of the six initial defendants, Catherine Sharp and Joselyn Walsh. But the four others — Kat Abughazaleh, Michael Rabbitt, Andre Martin and Brian Straw — are still set to go to trial.
Prosecutors last week filed a superseding indictment that removed the conspiracy count and instead charged the four with misdemeanor counts of forcibly impeding a federal agent. Though they expressed plans to dismiss the conspiracy count, prosecutors didn’t immediately do so.
Defense attorneys then argued that without an official dismissal, the conspiracy charge continued to “hang over the Defendants like the proverbial Sword of Damocles,” while prosecutors countered that holding off on dismissing a charge until after trial isn’t “remotely unusual, let alone nefarious.”
On Wednesday, prosecutors filed a new motion asking Perry to toss the conspiracy count out.
Defense attorneys have questioned why, less than a month before trial, prosecutors opted to drop the conspiracy count just as they were ordered by Perry to present unredacted transcripts of its grand jury proceedings.
Attorney Christopher Parent, who represents Straw, said this week the decision “raises red flags” about the government’s presentation of the law to the grand jury. On Thursday, he accused prosecutors of possibly playing a “shell game” to hide some potential misconduct.
“The decision to abandon the case’s central and most serious allegation at this late stage speaks volumes,” defense attorneys wrote in a motion this week.
The government’s “remarkable about-face,” defense attorneys argued, comes at a time of “mounting national distrust” in the Department of Justice’s use of the grand jury process.
Citing the recent federal indictments filed against former FBI Director James Comey and the Southern Poverty Law Center, defense attorneys argued the timing of the dismissal announcement in this case at a hearing to review unredacted grand jury transcripts “is likely no coincidence.”
“These actions only underscore the growing concern that the grand jury is being wielded not as an instrument of justice, but as a tool of unchecked prosecutorial power meant to persecute any perceived enemies of the current White House,” they argued in their motion.
Attorneys for the remaining defendants have questioned whether the charges were politically driven by the Trump administration, though prosecutors have said they received no such push to pursue the case from Washington.
Perry on Thursday said she’s seen “about 99%” of the grand jury transcripts, but Parente maintained that there could be something in the final few redacted lines that could affect the viability of the government’s prosecution.
With a superseding indictment in place, the four defendants will be re-arraigned on May 18 ahead of their upcoming trial scheduled for later this month.
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