CHICAGO — A defense attorney for one of the “Broadview Six” immigration protesters alleged in court Tuesday that he had “reason to believe” that U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros had personal contact with members of the grand jury who indicted the group in October.
Hours later, Boutros’ office said Chicago’s top federal prosecutor has not presented evidence to a grand jury “on any particular case” since becoming U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois in April 2025. However, the response from his spokesperson did not deny he's been present in front of grand juries.
“Any appearance he has made in the grand juries has been in his capacity as the Chief Legal Advisor to the federal grand juries of this district, including to welcome them when they were impaneled or to advise generally on the role, function, and importance of the grand jury in our constitutional system of government and laws,” the statement read.
The allegation of Boutros' contact with the grand jury came from Chris Parente, a lawyer for Oak Park village trustee Brian Straw, one of the defendants in the case. Straw, along with three others from the original group of six, were set to face a rare federal misdemeanor trial beginning Tuesday. But instead, defendants and attorneys gathered in U.S. District Judge April Perry’s courtroom not for jury selection, but for the first in a series of hearings regarding possible sanctions for prosecutors involved in the case.
Read more: ‘Broadview 6’ trial canceled as prosecutors acknowledge misconduct before grand jury | Remaining ‘Broadview Six’ protesters set for rare federal misdemeanor trial next week
The judge brought parties back to her chambers to discuss the matter, according to reporting from the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune. But no further details were made available after the closed-doors portion of the hearing.
Boutros himself made a rare appearance in court last week to drop all remaining charges against the defendants — a dramatic final twist to the highest-profile criminal case resulting from the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz” mass deportation campaign last fall in Chicago. The U.S. attorney took responsibility for the actions of the former lead prosecutor on the case, whose behavior in front of the grand jury last fall came to light after Perry reviewed transcripts of the grand jury proceedings.
Read more: ‘Broadview Six’ plead not guilty to charges of ‘impeding’ agents outside ICE facility | Democratic candidates, officeholders indicted for ‘impeding’ agent outside ICE facility
Perry all but accused Assistant U.S. Attorney Sheri Mecklenburg of prosecutorial misconduct, saying the transcripts revealed inappropriate “vouching” in which Mecklenburg put “her personal credibility and trustworthiness on the line in support of the charges,” the judge said. The prosecutor also apparently asked grand jurors who did not support the government’s case to not come back, and allegedly had improper contact with those impaneled outside the grand jury room.
Mecklenburg left the case in February when she took an assignment to represent the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., as counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which Illinois’ senior U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin serves as the ranking Democrat. Durbin’s office on Friday confirmed Mecklenburg had been terminated from her new job after her alleged prosecutorial misconduct was made public.
Read more: After misconduct accusation in ‘Broadview 6’ case, former lead prosecutor fired from new D.C. job
The U.S. attorney claimed that he knew about — and took steps to correct — the grand juror dismissals in the fall, but he said he was only informed of the vouching and improper communications with grand jurors late last month. He told Perry that the revelation prompted his late April decision to drop the felony conspiracy charge against the four remaining defendants.
Boutros also said he’d “not seen conduct like that, and it upset me,” but defended the remaining two prosecutors against defense attorneys’ accusations that the U.S. attorney’s office had previously provided a strategically redacted version of grand jury transcripts to the judge in order to hide the prosecutorial misconduct.
Read more: Conspiracy charge dismissed for ‘Broadview 6’ as other ICE protesters sue over DNA collection | ‘Broadview 6’ defense accuses feds of keeping grand jury transcripts secret, reneging on dropping conspiracy charge | Feds say they’ll drop conspiracy charge against remaining ‘Broadview Six’ protesters
Perry called the redactions “the most problematic” of what she found in reading the full transcripts, but Boutros said it was his “very sincere belief” that none of the prosecutors “acted intentionally in misleading you.”
Late Friday afternoon before the holiday weekend, a court filing indicated the case would be taken over by Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur, a respected career prosecutor best known in recent years for her roles in blockbuster public corruption cases against ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and the “ComEd Four” accused of bribing him, in addition to former Chicago Ald. Ed Burke.
MacArthur on Tuesday said the government wouldn’t oppose the public release of the transcripts with proper redactions to protect grand jurors’ identifying information. Perry gave lawyers until June 5 to agree on redactions.
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