Wisconsin Supreme Court temporarily suspends Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan after arrest
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has suspended Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan after she was arrested by the FBI and charged last week for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant evade arrest, an order from the court shows.
"The court has learned that Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah C. Dugan has been charged with two federal criminal offenses, one of which is a felony and one of which is a misdemeanor," a two-page order from the court filed Tuesday stated.
"This court is charged in the Wisconsin Constitution with exercising superintending and administrative authority over the courts of this state. In the exercise of that constitutional authority and in order to uphold the public's confidence in the courts of this state during the pendency of the criminal proceeding against Judge Dugan, we conclude, on our own motion, that it is in the public interest that she be temporarily relieved of her official duties."
Dugan was charged with two criminal counts of "obstructing and impeding a proceeding before a department or agency of the United States" and "concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest," according to a criminal complaint unsealed Friday.
MORE: Reserve judge to handle cases of Milwaukee judge arrested by FBI, court says
The Wisconsin Supreme Court said Dugan is "temporarily prohibited from exercising the powers of a circuit court judge in the State of Wisconsin," effective Tuesday until further order from the court.
Prior to the order, a Milwaukee County official said this week that starting Monday, a reserve judge will cover Dugan's cases.
The judge was arrested on Friday over allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant "evade arrest" the week prior, according to FBI Director Kash Patel, who claimed on social media that Dugan "intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse."
U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement that two FBI agents arrested Dugan "for allegedly helping an illegal alien avoid arrest" by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Wisconsin Supreme Court temporarily suspends Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan after arrest originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
A 3-Year-Old Girl Vanished and Her Mom Claimed She Was Abducted — But Now Cops Say That Was a Lie
New Castle County police in Delaware have canceled an AMBER Alert for 3-year-old Nola Dinkins The case is now being investigated as a homicide by Maryland State Police Police claim the girl's mother falsely reported her daughter missing Authorities have canceled an Amber Alert for a missing 3-year-old girl after police in Delaware say the case is now being investigated as a homicide. Nola Dinkins was reported missing on Tuesday, June 10, by her mother, who police now allege gave false information to investigators when they initially responded to a Newark, Del., home around 7:15 p.m. that evening, according to a statement from the New Castle County Police Department. 'Nola's mother advised that she had pulled over after Nola became upset and was attempting to comfort her when an unknown White male armed with a handgun approached the vehicle and took Nola,' the statement reads. The mother further claimed that the suspect fled in a dark-colored SUV driven by a White female, according to police. An Amber Alert was then issued for Nola, and police, along with the FBI, investigated throughout the night. 'As a result of that investigation, detectives determined the initial account of the incident given by the mother was false,' police said. 'The Amber Alert is now canceled, and there is no danger to the public." Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. Police said the case is now being treated as a homicide investigation by the Maryland State Police. No suspects have been identified and further details surrounding the girl's location have not been released by police. 'There has not been any confirmation of a homicide as investigators are still actively searching for leads and in areas of Cecil County where police believe the child resides,' Elena Russo, the spokesperson for the Maryland State Police tells PEOPLE in a statement. "Additional information will be released as it becomes available." Anyone with information relevant to the investigation is urged to contact the Maryland State Police North East Barrack at 410-996-7800. Read the original article on People
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Miyares breaks with Trump over pardon of convicted ex-Culpeper sheriff
Culpeper Sheriff Scott Jenkins speaks to the crowd at the pro-gun rally in 2020. (Ryan M. Kelly for the Virginia Mercury) Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares is pushing back against President Donald Trump's decision to pardon former Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Jenkins, saying the ex-lawman's federal bribery conviction was well-founded and the pardon misguided. 'I have to authorize any state investigation into any elected official. And so I was aware of a lot of the facts at that time,' Miyares told The Mercury in an interview Tuesday. 'Given what I know, I would not have pardoned him.' The rare public break from Miyares, a Republican and rising star in Virginia politics who is seeking a second term this year, comes just weeks after Trump issued the controversial pardon in late May. The president portrayed Jenkins — a longtime supporter who campaigned for Trump in both 2016 and 2020 — as the victim of political persecution. 'Sheriff Scott Jenkins, his wife Patricia, and their family have been dragged through HELL,' Trump wrote in a Truth Social post announcing the pardon. He blamed the case on 'an overzealous Biden Department of Justice' and claimed Jenkins had been 'left for dead' by 'Radical Left monsters.' But prosecutors, a jury and residents in Jenkins's own hometown paint a far different picture. In March, Jenkins was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison after a jury found him guilty of accepting over $75,000 in bribes in exchange for issuing auxiliary deputy sheriff appointments and law enforcement credentials to wealthy businessmen and undercover agents. None of the recipients were trained, vetted, or expected to perform any actual law enforcement duties. They offered Jenkins cash and campaign contributions. The appointments came with official Culpeper County Sheriff's Office badges, identification cards, and in some cases, the ability to carry concealed weapons in jurisdictions where they otherwise may not have had permission to do so. Jenkins, 53, was convicted in December 2024 on 12 federal counts — including conspiracy, four counts of honest services wire fraud, and seven counts of bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds. 'Scott Jenkins violated his oath of office and the faith the citizens of Culpeper County placed in him when he engaged in a cash-for-badges scheme,' said Acting U.S. Attorney Zachary T. Lee in a statement after sentencing. 'We hold our elected law enforcement officials to a higher standard of conduct … and this case proves that when those officials use their authority for unjust personal enrichment, the Department of Justice will hold them accountable.' FBI officials echoed that assessment. Stanley Meador, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Richmond Division, called Jenkins's actions a betrayal of his badge. 'Every law enforcement officer takes an oath to serve and protect the community — that includes following the law they've sworn to uphold,' Meador said. 'I am proud of the diligent work our investigative team did on this case to bring Jenkins to justice.' Court documents showed that Jenkins accepted bribes from at least eight individuals, including co-defendants Rick Rahim, Fredric Gumbinner, and James Metcalf — all of whom pleaded guilty — as well as two undercover FBI agents posing as wealthy donors. In return, Jenkins appointed them as auxiliary deputy sheriffs and issued official law enforcement credentials. In one instance, Jenkins pressured Culpeper County officials to support a petition falsely claiming that Rahim — a convicted felon — resided in the county, in order to have his firearm rights restored. The petition, later revealed to contain misleading information, was central to the government's case in proving Jenkins's abuse of power. Assistant U.S. Attorney Melanie Smith, along with Trial Attorneys Celia Choy and Lina Peng from the Department of Justice's Public Integrity Section, led the prosecution. Despite the evidence and jury verdict, Trump's decision to intervene and grant clemency to Jenkins sparked outrage — even in conservative Culpeper County, where Trump won more than 60% of the vote in the 2024 presidential election. According to NPR, which interviewed more than two dozen Culpeper residents following the pardon, all but one person expressed disapproval of the pardon — and the lone supporter refused to go on record. 'That's a terrific mistake,' Ken Green, a retired entrepreneur and three-time Trump voter, told the reporter as he sat at the counter of Frost Café on Culpeper's Main Street. 'It's a failure of our justice system. He was guilty as could be. He needed to go to jail, and he didn't. So what kind of signal does that send?' For Miyares, the issue isn't Trump's constitutional authority — which he acknowledges — but whether that authority was exercised responsibly. 'I think it is clear the Constitution gives the president incredibly broad pardon powers, as we have seen,' Miyares said in the interview. 'And regardless of who's in the White House, these pardons can be controversial at times.' He added, 'Clearly the White House is privy to facts that I'm not aware of, but with the facts that I am aware of, I would not have pardoned him.' Miyares's criticism adds to a growing chorus of Republicans what they view as Trump's increasingly personal use of the pardon power. While presidents have long granted clemency for controversial figures, Jenkins's case stands out because of the sheer volume of evidence, the jury's unanimous verdict and the betrayal of public trust by a sitting sheriff. 'You're scared. Honestly, you're scared,' Jenkins said of his sentencing. 'You may have been a cop all your life but you're sitting here going, 'They want to put me in prison for life.'' Whether Trump's decision will have political consequences remains to be seen, but the fallout in Virginia — especially among conservative voters who also value law-and-order policy— is still unfolding. As Miyares put it, 'I don't agree with that.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Stanley Nelson, editor who probed cold cases of Jim Crow era, dies at 69
No one was charged and, as the decades passed, the case gradually faded from the town's collective memory. Even the editor of the local weekly - who sometimes wrote columns on the area's history - was unaware of what happened that night in 1964; at the time, he was a child in a white community up the road from Ferriday. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Then in 2007, the FBI released a list of cold cases from the civil rights era. The editor, Stanley Nelson, began to dig. First came old police reports and forensic files on the Morris case, including redacted FBI documents obtained from the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group. Advertisement Mr. Nelson moved on to interviews, including with former KKK members, as he tried to piece together what happened. As his articles began to appear in the Concordia Sentinel, some in Ferriday applauded his efforts to reopen the past. Others, it seemed, wanted to keep the lid tightly sealed. He received threats and, at least twice, was run off the road as he drove to the newsroom he shared with two colleagues at the 5,000-circulation weekly. Advertisement 'If you don't figure out what happened, and if you don't figure out why it happened, these things will live on forever,' said Mr. Nelson, who died June 5 in DeRidder, La., at 69. In January 2011, Mr. Nelson wrote about what he believed was the key piece of the puzzle - linking Morris's death to a former KKK henchman with a faction called the Silver Dollar Group. The man denied the allegations and was not charged. He died in 2013. But Mr. Nelson's investigation - and the reporting on why the KKK targeted Morris - was among the Pulitzer Prize finalists for local news in 2011 and reoriented the journalist's career to unearth other stories from the area's Jim Crow past. Mr. Nelson's work began to resonate far from the Mississippi Delta. The PBS news show 'Frontline' featured the documentary 'American Reckoning' in 2022 largely based on Mr. Nelson's probe into the 1967 killing of Wharlest Jackson Sr., a civil rights leader in Natchez, Miss., about 10 miles from Ferriday. A bomb planted in Jackson's car exploded when he flicked on his turn signal on his way home. Best-selling author Greg Iles also said Mr. Nelson's work inspired some of the historical overlays in his novels, including 'Natchez Burning' (2014), about attempts to revisit a murder case in the 1960s and the dark legacy of KKK violence and corruption. A character in the book, journalist Henry Sexton, was loosely based on Mr. Nelson. Advertisement 'Stanley Nelson raised his pen against the sword of hatred, and as a result, one bend of the Mississippi River looks a lot less dark than it once did. Stanley Nelson gives me hope for the South, and for America,' Iles wrote in the foreword to Mr. Nelson's 2016 book 'Devils Walking: Ku Klux Klan Murders Along the Mississippi River in the 1960s,' about the hate group's suspected links to the Morris murder and other unresolved cases. To mark the 60th anniversary of Morris's death, officials in Ferriday held a memorial in December in his memory. Mr. Nelson stood alongside Morris's granddaughter and great-granddaughter. In his articles, Mr. Nelson built an extensive argument on why the KKK unleashed its fury on Morris. He interviewed people recounting how the success of Morris's businesses angered local racists. Others speculated that Morris may have been targeted for refusing demands by a corrupt sheriff's deputy seeking free shoe repairs. A wreath was laid at the former site of Morris's one-story shop, now just the outline of a foundation. Mr. Nelson often remarked how he had no idea of what happened there until the FBI cold case report reached his desk. 'All my life, I passed by this shop,' he told an NPR correspondent in 2011, 'and didn't know it.' Frank Morris, fourth from left and wearing a tie and visor, in front of his shoe repair shop in Ferriday, La., circa 1964. Photo Courtesy Concordia Sentinel and the Civil Rights Cold Case Project, 2010 Stanley Skylar Nelson was born in Ferriday on Sept. 18, 1955, and raised in Cash Bayou near the village of Sicily Island. His father was a plumber and tended a family farm, and his mother was a nurse. He received a bachelor's degree in journalism from Louisiana Tech University in 1977 and soon joined the Concordia Sentinel, named for the surrounding Concordia Parish. He edited stories and covered local government and agencies overseeing issues such as Mississippi River water management. Advertisement As he turned to the civil-rights-era files, Mr. Nelson was adept at trying to minimize risks as he confronted people for information on long-dormant cases. Many former Klansmen, he noted, lived in rural areas, and they were rarely happy to see a journalist at their door. Mr. Nelson sent handwritten letters specifying the date and time he planned to show up in hopes of lessening the chance of violence. 'I just wanted to find out who did it,' he told The New York Times. He also found that family members of former KKK members were willing to spill private details. Children, he said, would sometimes see an opportunity to get back at abusive fathers. 'If your daddy was going out at night, burning buildings down, kidnapping and torturing people, doing everything bad that you can think of, they probably weren't too nice at home, either,' Mr. Nelson said in a 2018 speech. 'And they weren't.' Mr. Nelson's second book, 'Klan of Devils' (2021), detailed the Klan attack on two Black sheriff's deputies in Louisiana in 1965. The suspect, a World War II veteran, was detained, and the FBI was called in. The case collapsed when witnesses refused to give statements. Those killings - as well as the deadly attacks on Morris and Jackson - remain unresolved. Mr. Nelson retired in 2023 as editor of the Concordia Sentinel. He also taught classes at Louisiana State University's school of communications, which started a cold case project inspired by Mr. Nelson's investigations. His marriage to Nancy Burnham ended in divorce, but they later reunited as live-in companions. Mr. Nelson died at their home in DeRidder, she said, but no cause was given. Survivors include two children and four grandchildren. Advertisement In 'Devils Walking,' Mr. Nelson said his motivation to begin reopening the bloodshed of the civil rights era was partly as penance for his failure to know the full sweep of local history when he was younger. 'Every community and every citizen bear the ultimate responsibility of justice, including me and including you,' he wrote. 'After half a century, who is to blame for the future of justice in cases like this? We all are.'
