Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan is accused of escorting the man and his lawyer out of her courtroom through the jury door last week after learning that immigration authorities were seeking his arrest.
The man was taken into custody outside the courthouse after agents chased him on foot.
President Donald Trump’s administration has accused state and local officials of interfering with his immigration enforcement priorities.
The arrest also comes amid a growing battle between the administration and the federal judiciary over the president’s executive actions over deportations and other matters .
Dugan was taken into custody by the FBI on Friday morning on the courthouse grounds, according to US Marshals Service spokesman Brady McCarron.
She appeared briefly in federal court in Milwaukee later Friday before being released from custody. She faces charges of “concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest” and obstructing or impeding a proceeding.
“Judge Dugan wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest. It was not made in the interest of public safety,” her attorney, Craig Mastantuono, said during the hearing.
Democratic Wisconsin governor Tony Evers accused the Trump administration of repeatedly using “dangerous rhetoric to attack and attempt to undermine our judiciary at every level.”
“I will continue to put my faith in our justice system as this situation plays out in the court of law,” he said.
Court papers suggest Dugan was alerted to the presence of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the courthouse by her clerk, who was informed by an attorney that they appeared to be in the hallway.
The FBI affidavit describes Dugan as “visibly angry” over the arrival of immigration agents in the courthouse and says that she pronounced the situation “absurd” before leaving the bench and retreating to her chambers.
It says she and another judge later approached members of the arrest team inside the courthouse, displaying what witnesses described as a “confrontational, angry demeanor.”
After a back-and-forth with officers over the warrant for the man, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, she demanded that the arrest team speak with the chief judge and led them away from the courtroom, the affidavit says.
After directing the arrest team to the chief judge’s office, investigators say, Dugan returned to the courtroom and was heard saying words to the effect of “wait, come with me” before ushering Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer through a jury door into a non-public area of the courthouse.
The action was unusual, the affidavit says, because “only deputies, juries, court staff, and in-custody defendants being escorted by deputies used the back jury door. Defense attorneys and defendants who were not in custody never used the jury door.”
A sign that remained posted on Dugan’s courtroom door Friday advised that if any attorney or other court official “knows or believes that a person feels unsafe coming to the courthouse to courtroom 615,” they should notify the clerk and request an appearance via Zoom.
Flores-Ruiz, 30, was in Dugan’s court for a hearing after being charged with three counts of misdemeanor domestic battery.
Confronted by a roommate for playing loud music on March 12, Flores-Ruiz allegedly fought with him in the kitchen and struck a woman who tried to break them up, according to the police affidavit in the case.
Another woman who tried to break up the fight and called police allegedly got elbowed in the arm by Flores-Ruiz.
Flores-Ruiz faces up to nine months in prison and a US$10,000 fine on each count if convicted.
A federal judge, the same one Dugan would appear before a day later, had ordered Thursday that Flores-Ruiz remain jailed pending trial. Flores-Ruiz had been in the United States since reentering the country after he was deported in 2013, according to court documents. (AP)
