<p>The judge who discovered<b> </b>apparent misconduct by prosecutors<b> </b>in the "Broadview Six" conspiracy case has scheduled a hearing next week<b> </b>to help her decide what to do about the discovery that shook the Dirksen Federal Courthouse this summer.</p><p>U.S. District Judge April Perry said she will hear arguments Oct. 1 over whether to appoint an independent special counsel<b> </b>to investigate U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros and others for criminal contempt, among other possible sanctions. She revealed her plans in an order on the court docket Wednesday.</p><p>It’s the most substantive step from Perry in months, coming after she revealed alleged wrongdoing by the feds.<b> </b>She told lawyers May 21 that, “although I am not going to prejudge the issue without a hearing, I will say that I was incredibly shocked.”</p><div class="RelatedList Enhancement" data-module data-align-center>
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<a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2026/08/17/broadview-six-judge-april-perry-trump-vance" >‘Broadview 6' judge has to decide whether to hold prosecutors accountable after exposing misconduct</a>
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<p>Now, the time for such a hearing has apparently come.</p><p>News of the hearing follows months of back-and-forth in court filings, as defense attorneys and prosecutors argued over what should happen next.</p><p>The <a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2026/06/27/broadview-six-boutros-chicago" target="_blank" >“Broadview Six” </a>revelations triggered a credibility crisis for Boutros unlike any faced by his recent predecessors. More than 100 former federal prosecutors<b> </b>called out a <a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2026/06/08/broadview-six-andrew-boutros-federal-prosecutor-justice-department-doj" >“failure of leadership”</a><b> </b>in his office. A chorus of local Democratic elected officials called for his resignation. And the long-held assumption that judges could take the feds at their word began to crumble.</p><p>Boutros responded by announcing a set of<b> </b>“sweeping” reforms,”<b> </b>including a review of nearly <a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2026/06/22/broadview-six-damage-spreads-boutros-drops-more-charges-details-ongoing-review" target="_blank" >20 years of work </a>by the veteran prosecutor primarily accused of mishandling the “Broadview Six” case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sheri<b> </b>Mecklenburg. </p><p>The<b> </b>prosecution<b> </b>revolved around an Operation Midway Blitz protest<b> </b>on Sept. 26, 2025. Prosecutors alleged that a crowd pushed and damaged a federal agent’s SUV. But from that crowd, only six were charged with conspiring<b> </b>to impede a federal agent. Most of the defendants were involved in local Democratic politics.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>A crowd surrounds a federal agent’s vehicle outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 26, 2025.</p></figcaption><span class="line"></span><div class="Figure-credit"><p>Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times</p></div></div>
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</div><p>Those charged 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<b> </b>Joselyn Walsh and Abughazaleh campaign worker Andre Martin.</p><p>The one-year anniversary of the protest is Saturday.</p><p>The feds <a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2026/03/12/chicago-midway-blitz-immigration-trump-kat-abughazaleh-sharp-joselyn-walsh-broadview-six" target="_blank" >dropped charges</a> 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.</p><p>Perry later said she'd found 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.</p><p>The transcripts, which have since been made public, show Mecklenburg excused a grand juror who called the “Broadview Six” case a <a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2026/06/09/broadview-six-grand-jury-midway-blitz-boutros-trump" target="_blank" >“crock of s–.”</a></p><div class="RelatedList Enhancement" data-module data-align-center>
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<a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2026/06/27/broadview-six-boutros-chicago" >What to know about the ‘Broadview Six’ scandal rocking Chicago’s federal courthouse</a>
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<p>The prosecutor is also accused of a forbidden practice known as “vouching.” It occurs when prosecutors put their personal credibility on the line to support criminal charges. Grand jurors are expected to hand up indictments based on evidence, not the goodwill of a prosecutor who already has the upper hand in the grand jury room.</p><p>One key example of alleged vouching came Oct. 9, 2025, when Mecklenburg told grand jurors “I don’t charge people unless I’m absolutely sure.”</p><p>Boutros<b> </b>acknowledged<b> </b>this summer<b> </b>that he’d been emailed<b> </b>a transcript<b> </b>of that proceeding last fall, but he said he didn’t remember reading it. He told Perry in May that he’d learned of the vouching in late April.</p><p>Perry also mentioned a fourth concern: The alleged misconduct had been redacted out of the transcripts initially given to her by the feds. She called that “the most problematic”<b> </b>issue of all.</p><p>Four weeks after Perry revealed what she’d found, the former defendants<b> </b>asked Perry<b> </b>to take the extraordinary step of <a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2026/06/17/broadview-6-want-special-counsel-to-probe-boutros-office-trumps-justice-department-for-criminal-contempt" target="_blank" >appointing a special counsel</a><b> </b>to investigate Boutros and other Justice Department officials for criminal contempt.</p><p>Boutros has since acknowledged <a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2026/08/05/boutros-broadview-six-perry" target="_blank" >“mistakes were made.”</a> But he's said his reforms are meant to prevent them from happening again. He noted his office<b> </b>is not accused of explicitly violating any order from Perry 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.</p>
‘Broadview Six’ judge to hold hearing next week as she weighs consequences of feds’ misconduct 2026
IUSTITIA.BG – Investigations 2009-2026 2026-09-23 14:12:20
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