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Judge Dugan Evades Jail Time
Former Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan will not spend any time behind bars for her role in allowing a wanted, criminal, illegal immigrant to sneak out of the side door of her courtroom last spring.
Federal Judge Lynn Adelman on Wednesday instead sentenced Dugan to a $5,000 fine.
“This is the case of a good person, upset by immigration enforcement in this country, a sentiment widely shared, making a bad decision in the moment,” Adelman said.
A jury back in December convicted Dugan of obstruction for leaving her courtroom, arguing with ICE agents who were looking for Eduardo Flores-Ruiz. He was deported once, but snuck back into the country. He was in Dugan’s courtroom on the day in April to face battery charges. Police say he beat his roommate so badly that the roommate had to go to the hospital.
After Dugan yelled at the ICE agents outside her courtroom, she sent them down the hall to the chief judge’s office. Once they were gone, Dugan led Flores-Ruiz out of her courtroom through the non-public jury exit. Florez-Ruiz then jumped on an elevator, left the courthouse all together, and tried to run away from a third ICE agent who just happened to spot him.
Dugan’s lawyers initially argued that she could not be prosecuted because she was a judge. But the judge rejected that claim.
On Wednesday, Judge Adelman said Dugan suffered a “significant punishment” because she lost her job, had to withdraw from public life, and move.
Adelman said Dugan's fine-only sentence is fitting for “a few minutes of conduct.”
Dugan spoke at her sentencing, and struck a defiant tone by saying she was just “trying to do my job.”
“I will not let those minutes on April 18 define my life,” Dugan added.
Federal prosecutors had asked for between 15 and 121 months in prison.
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