A Wisconsin county judge was arrested and charged with obstructing an immigration arrest operation last week, FBI Director Kash Patel said Friday.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan appeared in federal court on Friday morning and has since been released, the Associated Press reported.
Patel said, in a since-deleted post on X, that Dugan was arrested for “intentionally misdirecting” federal agents who came to her courthouse to detain an immigrant who was set to appear in front of her in an unrelated court case. It wasn’t immediately clear why Patel deleted his post.
FBI Director Kash Patel appears to have deleted this post announcing the arrest of a Wisconsin judge. pic.twitter.com/3q0omNsNFO
— Tom Dreisbach (@TomDreisbach) April 25, 2025
"We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject — an illegal alien — to evade arrest,” Patel wrote.
Earlier this week, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reportedthat the FBI was investigating Dugan for trying to "help an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest."
The publication reported that Chief Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Carl Ashley had sent out an email to judges alerting them that agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had come to the Milwaukee County Courthouse on April 18 with an arrest warrant, but his email didn't name Dugan specifically.
The news outlet confirmed that Dugan was arrested Friday morning, noting that Ashley had confirmed Dugan's arrest in an email to courthouse officials.
Officials have not formally confirmed that Flores-Ruiz is the defendant Dugan is accused of helping, as Patel says in his deleted post. Flores-Ruiz, 30, is a Mexican immigrant who was facing three misdemeanor battery charges. He was in Dugan's courtroom for a pre-trial conference on April 18, the Journal Sentinel reported.
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