Former Wisconsin judge avoids prison time after being convicted of obstructing federal immigration agents
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan leaves the Milwaukee Federal Courthouse on May 15, 2025 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
(MILWAUKEE) — Hannah Dugan, a former Wisconsin judge who was found guilty of obstructing federal immigration agents, was spared prison time, according to ABC Milwaukee affiliate WISN, which was in the courtroom for the sentencing on Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman said prison was unnecessary and imposed a $5,000 fine, according to WISN.
Dugan, 67, faced a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
Adelman described the former judge as a dedicated public servant who “made a bad decision in the moment.”
“This is a person who has done a lot of good for our community,” Adelman said, according to WISN.
Dugan addressed the court prior to her sentencing, saying that during her nine years as judge, she “strived to do my best to uphold justice,” according to WISN.
“I’ve been cast as both a scofflaw and a hero. I am neither. I am a public servant who was just trying to do my job,” she said, WISN reported.
The defense had asked for time served, arguing in a filing ahead of sentencing that the circumstances of the offense were “isolated and unique” and that Dugan has been a “exemplary member of this community.”
“As a result of her conviction in this case, Hannah Dugan has lost the judicial job she loved and that was the culmination of a career spent serving others,” her defense wrote. “Sentencing need not do worse to her.”
The government had argued for a “meaningful sentence,” stating in a filing prior to sentencing that this was a “serious offense, and it warrants a correspondingly serious sentence.”
“The Court’s sentence should not only reflect the personal consequences to the defendant but also the broader institutional harm caused when a judge obstructs the lawful administration of justice,” the federal prosecutors wrote.
Dugan was accused of obstructing official Department of Homeland Security removal proceedings and knowingly concealing an undocumented man from immigration authorities at a courthouse in April 2025 while serving as a Milwaukee County Circuit judge.
A jury found her guilty of obstructing federal agents and not guilty of concealing an undocumented immigrant from arrest during the courthouse incident following a weeklong trial in December 2025. She resigned the following month.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Elijah McClain in an undated photo. (Family photo)
(NEW YORK) — The Colorado Court of Appeals reversed the convictions of two former Aurora paramedics, who were convicted in December 2023 of criminally negligent homicide in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old unarmed Black man who was walking home from a convenience store.
In reversing the convictions, the judge ruled on Thursday that the case should be sent back to the district court for a possible retrial.
McClain’s case gained national attention, particularly in the wake of the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, becoming one of the prominent cases that fueled Black Lives Matter protests across the country.
Sheneen McClain, Elijah McClain’s mother, reacted to the reversal of the convictions in a post on social media on Thursday, calling the move “corrupt and cowardly.”
“I am not surprised by the denial of true justice for American citizens in the hands of government branches who allow criminal behaviors in their police agencies,” she wrote. “They are corrupt and cowardly.”
ABC News has reached out to attorneys for the paramedics, Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper, for comment.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser told ABC News in a statement that his office stands by its decision to charge the paramedics and “is committed to defending these convictions through the appeals. Justice demands it.”
ABC News reached out to Weiser’s office for further comment.
The charges
Cichuniec and Cooper were accused of administering an excessive amount of ketamine to sedate McClain after an encounter with police on Aug. 24, 2019.
Cichuniec and Cooper were found guilty of criminally negligent homicide on Dec. 23, 2023. Cichuniec was also convicted of assault in the second-degree via the unlawful administration of drugs. Cooper was acquitted of the assault charge in 2023, and they both pleaded not guilty at trial.
The appeals court ruling upheld Cichuniec’s assault conviction, but reversed the negligent homicide conviction.
Cooper was sentenced in 2024 to a four-year probationary sentence for negligent homicide. Meanwhile, Cichuniec was sentenced to five years in prison with a three-year period of parole for the assault charge and one year to be served concurrently on the negligent homicide charge.
Cichuniec and Cooper separately appealed their convictions.
In Thursday’s ruling, the appeals court agreed with Cooper’s defense team that the lower court “misled” jurors by failing to clarify the standard of care applicable to the charge of criminally negligent homicide after jurors asked the court for a definition.
“By telling the jurors to apply the ‘common and ordinary meanings’ of the words in the instruction, the court failed to shine any light on the issue and in fact misled the jurors as to the applicable standard of care: The proper standard wasn’t that of a generic reasonable person but of a person in Cooper’s profession under the existing circumstances,” the ruling reads.
The judge ruled that the reversal of Cooper’s conviction also applies to Cichuniec because they were both tried together in that case.
“The two were tried on identical theories of guilt and the evidence against them was, while not identical, sufficiently similar that we can’t conclude that the errors were harmless as to Cichuniec,” the ruling says.
What happened to Elijah McClain?
McClain was confronted by police while walking home from a convenience store after a 911 caller told authorities they had seen someone “sketchy” in the area.
McClain was unarmed and wearing a ski mask at the time. His family says he had anemia, a blood condition that can make people feel cold more easily.
When officers arrived on the scene, they told McClain they had a right to stop him because he was “being suspicious.”
In police body camera footage, McClain can be heard telling police he was going home, and that “I have a right to go where I am going.”
Officer Nathan Woodyard placed McClain in a carotid, or choke, hold and he and the other two officers on the scene moved McClain by force to the grass and restrained him.
When Cooper and Cichuniec arrived, McClain was given a shot of 500 milligrams of ketamine to sedate him and he was loaded into an ambulance where he had a heart attack, according to investigators.
McClain died on Aug. 30, 2019, three days after doctors pronounced him brain dead and he was removed from life support, officials said.
Former police officer Randy Roedema was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and assault in the third degree in McClain’s death. He was sentenced to more than one year in the county jail in January.
Two other officers, Jason Rosenblatt and Woodyard, were found not guilty on charges of reckless manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Rosenblatt was also acquitted on charges of assault in the second degree.
Workers gather outside of the former Pfizer headquarters building on July 08, 2026, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — New York City officials began reopening some streets and buildings in Midtown Manhattan Wednesday, after engineering crews stabilized a building that was at risk of a partial collapse due to buckling beams.
Engineers worked throughout Tuesday night and the following morning to shore up the compromised floors at 235 E. 42nd St., the former Pfizer corporate building that is currently being converted into residential apartments.
“Right now, we have been in a consistent and stable and safe situation. We have been able to bring in a plan and materials to stabilize the impact,” New York City Buildings Commissioner Ahmed Tigani said Wednesday.
The building was evacuated Tuesday morning after construction crews discovered buckling beams on the 21st floor of the 37-story building. The 21st through 26th floors began caving as a result, according to DOB.
A five-by-three-block frozen zone was established to prohibit pedestrians and vehicles around the site. Nine buildings were evacuated as crews carefully made their way into the compromised building and worked to secure it.
Emergency shoring was installed from the 18th through 23rd floors, including structural steel shoring columns on the 21st and 22nd floors, and light-duty shoring posts on four other floors, the DOB said on Wednesday.
No additional movement has been detected as of Tuesday morning, according to DOB officials.
As of Wednesday afternoon, three nearby buildings remained vacated, along with one restaurant located near the site, DOB said.
The frozen zone was also scaled back. Vehicles are prohibited from entering 42nd and 43rd streets between 2nd and 3rd avenues, the city said.
The DOB is currently conducting an investigation of the incident, which it said “will include a detailed review of all associated plans and construction documents, interviews with witnesses and responsible parties, a full inspection sweep of the entire construction site, and review of available video and photo evidence.”
MetroLoft, the developer of the conversion project, said Wednesday that it will fully rebuild the impacted areas of the building and that the building was never at risk of collapse.
“We have been working closely with the Department of Buildings to rectify the situation. Our team worked through the night stabilizing the affected columns, and the DOB has confirmed the structure is now stable,” MetroLoft said in a statement on Wednesday. “We have identified the issue and developed a clear plan to fix it. This is a localized situation affecting less than 30 apartments out of over 1,600. At no time was the building, or any portion of it, at risk of collapse.”
“We are in the process of addressing the issue and will fully rebuild this portion of the building in tandem with ongoing construction,” the statement continued. “We remain on schedule, and this work will not delay delivery of the building as it is such a small portion of the project. We are working around the clock so that operations can resume and life in the area can return to normal.”
DOB said that it ordered the building’s owner to retain a third-party engineer to conduct a forensic evaluation.
The construction project is one of the city’s largest commercial-to-residential conversions in city history, officials said.
