Four months after the spectacular collapse of the “Broadview Six” case, the onetime defendants argued Tuesday that “significant failings” by Chicago U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros demonstrate the need for an independent special counsel to figure out what went wrong with the tainted conspiracy case brought against six Operation Midway Blitz protesters.
At “bare minimum,” they said, answers are needed about Boutros’ recent admission that he possessed a transcript of grand jury proceedings during which one of his prosecutors engaged in apparent misconduct. It occurred while the feds were seeking an indictment against the six individuals who demonstrated last September against the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign.
Boutros has said he doesn’t remember reading the transcript when he got it last fall. And he told U.S. District Judge April Perry in May he’d only learned of the misconduct in April.
But defense attorneys hammered away at the revelation in a 61-page court document filed late Tuesday.
“The roots of this prosecution … were poisoned from the start,” they wrote.
Their filing might finally bring an end to the monthslong back-and-forth between defense attorneys and prosecutors over what should be done about the “Broadview Six” case. The May 21 collapse of the case led to repeated calls for hearings over the conduct of Assistant U.S. Attorney Sheri Mecklenburg, the prosecutor at the center of the controversy. Questions also remain about the roles played by others in Boutros’ office.
Now, with such questions fully briefed in the “Broadview Six” case, all eyes will turn to Perry.
It’s not clear how — or when — Perry will hand down a ruling, though. She could summon lawyers to her courtroom and hand it down from the bench. She might hold a hearing. Or, she might drop a written ruling on the court docket without warning.
Meanwhile, the new defense filing invites the judge to order prosecutors to turn over documents. Specifically, they suggest “any communications” between Boutros’ office and Justice Department officials in Washington. The records could be turned over only to Perry, they wrote, for her review.
Along the way, defense attorneys raised several questions about the grand jury transcript possessed by Boutros. They pointed to his “tough stance on prosecuting individuals who purportedly assault law enforcement officers” and noted he’d “declared these cases to be of great significance.”
The transcript in question recorded the events of Oct. 9, when grand jurors initially rejected the case against the “Broadview Six” in a rebuke known as a no-bill. Boutros has said he received a copy of that transcript by email Oct. 14.
“The government wants this court to believe that [Boutros] did not review the very transcript of the proceeding where the no-bill was obtained,” the defense attorneys wrote.
They questioned why the transcript was ordered, who ordered it, who sent it to Boutros, and why?
“Did Mr. Boutros specifically request the grand jury transcript?” they wrote.
They also accused Boutros’ office of “actively evading disclosure of the truth about Main Justice’s role in the case.”
The “Broadview Six” conspiracy case revolved around an Operation Midway Blitz protest in September 2025. Prosecutors alleged that a crowd pushed and damaged a federal agent’s SUV. But from that crowd, only six were charged. Most of them were involved in local Democratic politics.
The defendants were then-congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh, Oak Park village trustee Brian Straw, then-Cook County Board candidate Catherine “Cat” Sharp, 45th Ward Democratic committeeperson Michael Rabbitt, musician Joselyn Walsh and Abughazaleh campaign worker Andre Martin.
The feds dropped charges against Walsh and Sharp in March. Then, on the eve of trial in late May, defense attorneys convinced Perry to review unredacted transcripts of grand jury proceedings in the case. The feds had previously given her redacted versions.
Perry later said she was “incredibly shocked” to find three types of prosecutorial misconduct in the unredacted transcripts. Mecklenburg is accused of speaking with grand jurors outside the grand jury room and of excusing grand jurors who didn’t agree with the feds’ case. She’s also accused of a forbidden practice known as “vouching.”
It occurs when prosecutors put their personal credibility on the line to support criminal charges.
Perry concluded that her trust in federal prosecutors had “been broken.”
Four weeks after Perry revealed what she’d found, defense attorneys for some of the former defendants asked Perry to take the extraordinary step of appointing a special counsel to investigate Boutros and other Justice Department officials for criminal contempt.
Boutros has since acknowledged “mistakes were made.” But he said he’s put reforms in place to prevent them from happening again. He noted his office is not accused of explicitly violating Perry’s order regarding the grand jury transcripts, but he admitted the “better course” would have been to give her unredacted copies of the grand jury transcripts in the first place.
Meanwhile, his office has worked to manage a credibility crisis that has not been limited to Perry’s courtroom. Multiple judges questioned their ability to trust federal prosecutors and agents this summer, and some threatened to hold hearings.
“The court’s message has been clearly heard and there is no need to do more,” Boutros told Perry in a 52-page court filing Aug. 4. “The office has not taken lightly this court’s statement about losing trust.”