U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro has once again failed spectacularly, as she has been unable to charge the same D.C. woman in court four different times.
On Thursday, a jury found Sidney Lori Reid not guilty on misdemeanor charges of assaulting an FBI agent. Reid was accused of assaulting FBI agent Eugenia Bates back in July while being detained. Video shows Reid outside D.C. Jail filming Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who were waiting to arrest two people.
As she was filming, ICE officer Vincent Liang took her arms and pushed her against a wall. Bates came to help Liang, and while Reid was struggling, she made a “jerk movement” with her knee that ventured near—but never touched—Bates’s groin. Pirro’s office nonetheless argued that this was an assault of an agent.
Bates, the only witness Pirro’s office called forward, had her text messages after the incident exposed in the trial, where she was seen calling Reid a “libtard.” One message was apparently missing as well.
“You should be livid that the government brought this case,” federal public defender Tezira Abe told the jury on Thursday. “They overplayed their hand on this one.” The jury ended up agreeing.
Pirro’s office had already tried three separate times before this to federally indict Reid on felony charges, which can carry up to eight years in prison. They alleged that Reid “forcibly pushed” an FBI agent’s arm off of her with the intent to injure the agent. That argument failed then, and it failed again on Thursday.
“Seeking an indictment for a third time is extremely rare and usually only reserved for the most serious of crimes,” attorney Christopher Macchiaroli told D.C.’s local WUSA9 at the time of the felony indictment attempt. “If a governmental entity cannot convince a supermajority of grand jurors that there is a fair probability that a crime was committed, it is virtually impossible to believe that twelve jurors in the same relevant jurisdiction could unanimously at a future date find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the highest standard of proof under the law.”
It’s clear that Pirro’s office is vindictively overcharging in a desperate attempt to make an example out of someone, to have a headline to tout for President Trump. But regardless of how many resources and indictments they throw, it doesn’t seem to be working.
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