Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin cut ties with Sheri Mecklenburg on Friday after a federal judge raised the possibility of prosecutorial misconduct in the Broadview Six case, the latest fallout from a criminal case that collapsed days before trial.
Mecklenburg had been working as counsel detailed to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, where Durbin is the ranking member, while also serving as one of the prosecutors involved in the case tied to last fall’s protest outside the Broadview ICE processing facility. The case involved six people, including progressive politicians, who were accused of disrupting immigration enforcement during Operation Midway Blitz.
The move came after U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros dismissed all charges days before the criminal trial of the remaining Broadview Six members was supposed to begin. U.S. District Judge April Perry had already criticized prosecutors in the case and, in closed court testimony, raised the possibility of misconduct. Defense lawyers later said redactions and missing pages in the grand jury transcripts amounted to an intentional coverup by the U.S. Attorney’s office.
An unsealed court transcript referenced Mecklenburg as vouching for evidence before the grand jury. In that same proceeding, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Skiba, who said he had only worked for the U.S. Attorney’s office for two months and that the Broadview Six grand jury was the second in his career, made plain how unusual the case had become. “Ms. Mecklenburg is not here to defend herself. I am not trying to deflect blame, but I was with a 20-years-plus senior veteran,” he said. “I remember what you referred to as the vouching incident. I remember thinking at the time that I would never make that statement as a matter of personal style.”
Skiba added that what he did not know then, and what only became clear as prosecutors discussed dismissing the charges, was that the conduct was “beyond personal style” and “at a minimum, arguably misconduct.” Perry was even more direct in her criticism, telling the court: “Mistakes happen. They happen to all of us. But as I tell my children, you own it. You admit to it. You apologize for it, and you move on. What you do not do is hide it,” She also said: “I do believe deeply... that most government attorneys are doing the best they can to do the right thing. That trust has been broken,”
Durbin’s spokesperson said the Senate Judiciary Committee does not directly employ Mecklenburg, but added that, because of the gravity of the charges in the case, her detail from the Department of Justice had been terminated. The senator also agreed with Perry’s concerns about what his office called a deeply flawed prosecution.
The Broadview Six case has now become more than a protest prosecution. It has become a test of how much damage a misconduct inquiry can do once a judge, defense lawyers and prosecutors themselves begin describing the same case in the language of broken trust.
