Massachusetts Judge Acquitted in Immigration Case
2022.09.22 13:28
Massachusetts Judge Acquitted in Immigration Case
By Kristina Sobol
Budrigannews.com – On Thursday, U.S. prosecutors announced that they had reached an agreement to drop criminal charges against a Massachusetts judge who was accused of obstructing a defendant’s federal immigration arrest in her courtroom during the Trump administration.
In exchange for the judge referring herself to a state commission tasked with investigating judicial misconduct, federal prosecutors claimed they had agreed to dismiss the obstruction charges brought against Newton District Court Judge Shelley Joseph.
The obstruction charges against her former courtroom deputy, Wesley MacGregor, who is no longer employed by the state court system, are also being dropped by the prosecution. In order to settle the remaining perjury charge, he entered into a deferred prosecution agreement.
State Democrats and civil rights groups had long argued that the high-profile case, which was filed in 2019 during the administration of former Republican President Donald Trump, was politically motivated. The announcement marked the conclusion of the case.
In a statement, Joseph’s attorney Thomas Hoopes stated, “This was a patently political indictment, blindly grounded in prosecutorial ambition.”
During clashes between Trump’s administration and local governments, including “sanctuary cities” that resisted his immigration crackdown and courthouse arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE (NYSE:)), the case was filed. officers.
In 2018, the prosecution said that Joseph and MacGregor helped a man who had been deported leave their Newton courthouse through a back door, preventing an ICE agent from detaining him.
Rachael Rollins (NYSE:), a Trump appointee who succeeded Andrew Lelling as U.S. Attorney at the time of the case’s initial filing, a Democratic President Joe Biden appointed.
Rollins recused herself from the case after she had filed a lawsuit to prevent the Trump administration from conducting immigration arrests at courthouses while she was serving as Boston’s district attorney. As a result, the case was reassigned to Rhode Island U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha.
Cunha stated, “I have concluded that the interests of justice are best served by review of this matter before the body that oversees the conduct of Massachusetts state court judges, rather than in a continuation of a federal criminal prosecution.”
