Hannah Dugan, a former Milwaukee County judge, recently had her sentencing hearing after being found guilty in December of felony obstruction in the state of Wisconsin, reports Fox News. The prosecutors say that she helped an illegal immigrant escape ICE last April as they tried to serve him a warrant at her courthouse.
The man, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, was facing battery charges and would later be caught outside the courthouse in a foot chase. He was deported to Mexico in November.
Despite the federal prosecutors asking for 15-21 months behind bars, Dugan got no prison time and was only forced to pay a $5,000 fine. She did defend her actions during the trial by saying "I have been cast both as a scofflaw and as a hero. I am neither. I am a public servant who was just trying to do my job."
Jim Trusty, former Department of Justice prosecutor, spoke on the way the former judge acted during her trial on Fox Business.
“This is somebody who went to trial and had her lawyers say she was a victim of Trump. So, she never expressed remorse,” Trusty says.
He explained that Dugan "shooed all the ICE agents" away once she heard that the man had an ICE warrant, not realizing that two undercover agents were still present to witness her leave the courtroom to sneak the defendant out of the back door.
Trusty also criticized the judge in charge of Dugan's prosecution.
“If the judge had any sort of lenity in his mind when it started, when he started hearing that nonsense from her about "just being a public servant," he should've rewritten what he was going to do with sentencing,” Trusty says.
Dugan resigned at the beginning of the year due to Republican state lawmakers threatening to impeach her. However, she says that she plans to return to public service.
