It’s been three months since revelations of prosecutorial misconduct in the case of the “Broadview Six” rocked the Dirksen Federal Courthouse, and there’s still been no hearing over allegations that cast unusual doubt on the credibility of U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros’ office.
So in a sign of the defense bar’s pent-up frustration, an attorney for a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer accused of sexual assault insisted Wednesday that Assistant U.S. Attorney Sheri Mecklenburg should testify under oath — and so should anyone who worked in the grand jury room with the veteran prosecutor at the center of the “Broadview Six” scandal.
“We don’t even know the level of inappropriate statements that were made to this grand jury by [Mecklenburg],” defense attorney Michael Clancy told U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso. “We have no idea. Because she hasn’t testified. It hasn’t been disclosed.”
The nearly hour-long argument by Clancy came ahead of a pretrial conference in the case of CBP Officer Luis Uribe, accused of sexually assaulting women in Chicago’s suburbs in 2022. Uribe was indicted in December by the same grand jury that indicted the “Broadview Six,” though Uribe’s case was not handled by Mecklenburg.
Still, Clancy said Mecklenburg’s misconduct, which occurred in October, tainted the grand jury to the point that Uribe’s indictment should be thrown out. Clancy compared the grand jury on Wednesday to a pot of water.
He explained that, “once you put in some bad meat, into that water … you can take [out] all of the spoiled stuff … you can take [out] all of [Mecklenburg’s] conversations … all of her antics.”
But, he said, “the water’s still bad.”
And crucially, there are still questions about Mecklenburg’s conduct.
Alonso agreed Wednesday to review grand jury minutes from the Uribe case, but he declined to rule on Clancy’s motion to dismiss the indictment. Still, the defense attorney’s impassioned argument is indicative of the legal community’s desire to get to the bottom of what happened with Mecklenburg.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Richard Rothblatt and Jonathan Shih accused Clancy of gamesmanship by bringing up the issue on the eve of Uribe’s Sept. 8 trial. Shih also said there’s no legal authority for Clancy’s argument.
“There’s no concrete evidence,” Shih said. “There’s no indication that there’s any wrongdoing in this particular case. And absent that, there’s no basis for dismissal.”
Mecklenburg has been accused of three types of misconduct before the grand jury that indicted the “Broadview Six,” a group of Operation Midway Blitz protesters. She allegedly spoke to grand jurors outside the grand jury room and excused panel members who didn’t agree with the feds’ case.
She’s also accused of “vouching,” a forbidden practice in which prosecutors put their personal credibility on the line to support criminal charges.
The revelations prompted Boutros to drop the charges against the “Broadview Six.” Meanwhile, similar allegations against Mecklenburg have surfaced in other cases.
U.S. District Judge April Perry presides over the “Broadview Six” case. She’s yet to rule on a defense request for sanctions and the appointment of an independent special counsel who could investigate Boutros and others for criminal contempt.
Perry is unlikely to rule until September. That’s partly because prosecutors asked for two extensions in the briefing schedule, and defense attorneys asked for one.
Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman threatened in June to hold the kind of hearing being sought by Clancy. She presides over a case tied to Loretto Hospital that was once handled by Mecklenburg. Boutros’ office avoided that hearing by permanently dropping charges against two defendants.
Clancy brought that up, too. He complained to Alonso that the feds “dismissed cases so that [Mecklenburg] didn’t hit the stand, and wouldn’t hit the stand, and Mr. Boutros wouldn’t have to hit the stand.
“And that’s just wrong,” he said.
Clancy said he never would have expected Mecklenburg to engage in such alleged misconduct. He called the Chicago U.S. attorney’s office “a proud office that I’ve respected for 27 years.”
But now there are questions, he said. And Mecklenburg “is not an island.” She worked in the grand jury room with colleagues, and Clancy questioned whether she’d ever vouched for other prosecutors in the office.
“She is not a sole practitioner,” Clancy said. “She is not someone who acts alone.”