WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors have did not get hold of a felony indictment towards a person who was seen on digital camera hurling a sandwich at a federal regulation enforcement official within the nation’s capital, an individual accustomed to the matter advised The Related Press.
Sean Charles Dunn was arrested on an assault cost after he threw a sub-style sandwich at a Customs and Border Safety agent. A video of the incident went viral, and shortly after he was fired from the Justice Division, the place he labored as a global affairs specialist within the division’s legal division.
The case is among the examples of the authorized pushback to President Donald Trump’s regulation enforcement surge in Washington that has led to greater than 1,000 arrests. It’s extremely uncommon for grand jurors to refuse to return an indictment, and it was as soon as mentioned that prosecutors might persuade a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich.”
Associated: Man Charged with Assaulting Border Patrol Agent with Sandwich in DC Is an Air Pressure Veteran
Grand jurors resolve in secret proceedings whether or not there’s sufficient proof for an indictment, and prosecutors might return to strive once more in Dunn’s case. The individual briefed on the failure to acquire an indictment towards Dunn on Tuesday was not approved to publicly talk about the matter and spoke on situation of anonymity.
A message searching for remark was despatched Wednesday to a spokesperson for the highest federal prosecutor within the District of Columbia, U.S. Lawyer Jeanine Pirro, whose workplace is prosecuting the case. An legal professional for Dunn declined to remark.
The New York Occasions first reported the event.
Dunn’s arrest got here in one of many first days after Trump’s Aug. 11 order for federal brokers and troops to flood Washington. Authorities say Dunn approached a bunch of CBP brokers, pointed a finger in an agent’s face and swore at him, calling him a “fascist,” a police affidavit says. An observer’s video captured Dunn throwing a sandwich on the agent’s chest, the affidavit says.
“Why are you right here? I don’t need you in my metropolis!” Dunn shouted, in line with police.
Dunn tried to run away however was apprehended, police mentioned. He was initially launched after which was rearrested by federal brokers. A video of brokers going to arrest and handcuff him was posted on-line by an official White Home X account.
Protection legal professionals and at the least one federal choose have raised issues over the federal authorities’s dealing with of arrests on fees that, in lots of circumstances, would sometimes be dealt with by native authorities as a substitute of federal prosecutors. One Justice of the Peace choose this week scolded prosecutors over a case towards a person who was jailed for per week earlier than prosecutors determined to drop the case. The choose known as it “essentially the most unlawful search I’ve ever seen in my life.”
In one other current case, prosecutors in Washington acknowledged that three grand juries had voted individually towards indicting a girl accused of assaulting an FBI agent exterior the town’s jail in July, the place she was recording video of the switch of inmates into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers. Rebuffed by the grand juries, Pirro’s workplace is pursuing a misdemeanor assault cost towards Sydney Lori Reid as a substitute.
On Tuesday, Scott J. Pichon, 33, was arrested on a cost that he spit on two Army Nationwide Guard members from South Carolina who had been patrolling close to Union Station, the town’s transit hub, on Friday. Pichon faces a felony assault cost that carries a most jail sentence of eight years.
_____
Related Press author Michael Kunzelman contributed to this report.
Story Continues
© Copyright 2025 Related Press. All rights reserved. This materials is probably not printed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
