Newly released Milwaukee County Courthouse footage appears to show Judge Hannah Dugan interacting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents before she allegedly directed them away from an illegal immigrant they were seeking to apprehend.
Earlier this month, a federal grand jury indicted Dugan on two federal felony counts: obstruction and concealing an individual.
The illegal immigrant the judge has been accused of helping is Mexican national Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, 30, who appeared in her courtroom April 18 for a pre-trial conference in connection with domestic violence charges.
When Dugan learned that ICE agents were outside the courtroom, prepared to arrest Flores-Ruiz, she went to confront them.
Milwaukee CBS News affiliate WDJT-TV aired footage, obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request, of the judge’s interaction with the ICE agents, who were in plain clothes.
WDJT’s Adam Rife reported that Dugan and another judge approached the agents, having been alerted to their presence by a court official, according to the federal criminal complaint.
She told the agents they did not have the proper type of warrant to arrest Flores-Ruiz and demanded they go speak with the county’s chief judge, directing them away from the area outside her courtroom.
Dugan then went down the hall and told other ICE agents to do the same.
Do you think Dugan is guilty of what she’s accused of?
“With the agents gone from the hallway, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz and his attorney exit into the hallway through a different door. As they walk down the hall toward the elevators, they pass another plain-clothes federal agent neither they nor Judge Dugan seemed to have noticed,” Rife reported.
That agent motioned to another to follow Flores-Ruiz, and they apprehended him outside the courthouse as he tried to run away.
🚨Video Released in the Judge Dugan Case. See Flores-Ruiz dart into traffic, almost getting hit, & then officers chasing him down. This is why arresting someone in a courthouse is safer than the street. pic.twitter.com/XYeoPM44r5
— Dan Lennington (@DanLennington) May 21, 2025
The New York Post reported that on May 15, Dugan pleaded not guilty to the charges against her and is slated to appear in federal court on July 9.
Her attorneys also filed a motion to dismiss, citing judicial immunity.
“The problems with this prosecution are legion, but most immediately, the government cannot prosecute Judge Dugan because she is entitled to judicial immunity for her official acts,” the defense wrote in its motion.
“Immunity is not a defense to the prosecution to be determined later by a jury or court; it is an absolute bar to the prosecution at the outset,” they wrote, directly citing the 2023 Trump V. United States case.
🚨 Relieved Of Judicial Duties 🚨
Per Order of the WI Supreme Court
Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan is
“temporarily relieved of her official duties”
“prohibited from exercising the powers of a circuit court judge in the State of Wisconsin”
Until further order pic.twitter.com/CYR7xzMcnp
— Phil Holloway ✈️ (@PhilHollowayEsq) April 29, 2025
Last month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended Dugan pending the outcome of her criminal case.
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