The Wisconsin Supreme Court has issued a temporary suspension for Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan, who is facing federal charges connected to allegations that she assisted an illegal immigrant in evading waiting immigration authorities.
In an order made public Tuesday evening, the court cited one felony and one misdemeanor charge against Dugan, concluding that suspending her from the bench serves the public interest. Dugan is expected to appear at a pretrial hearing on May 15 to address the federal charges, reports The Center Square.
“The court is charged in the Wisconsin Constitution with exercising superintending and administrative authority of the courts of this state,” the justices wrote. “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.”
The federal charges against Dugan include obstruction of a federal proceeding and hiding an individual to avoid detection or arrest. If convicted, she faces a potential sentence of up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine for the obstruction charge. The concealment charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Prosecutors allege that Dugan attempted to shield Eduardo Flores Ruiz, a man who had been deported from the United States and later returned. Ruiz was facing domestic abuse and battery charges in Milwaukee at the time.
FBI Special Agent Lindsay Schloemer, in the complaint, explained that arrests at courthouses are strategic. Law enforcement officers often act there because “not only the fact that law enforcement knows the location at which the wanted individual should be located but also the fact that the wanted individual would have entered through a security checkpoint and thus unarmed, minimizing the risk of injury to law enforcement, the public, and the wanted individual.”
