The first trial stemming from protests against immigration crackdowns in Chicago last year ended in dismal failure for the Justice Department, with a not guilty verdict for a man accused of putting a murder hit on one of President Donald Trump’s most notorious Border Patrol officials.
According to The Associated Press, “Jurors deliberated less than 4 hours before returning the favorable verdict for 37-year-old Juan Espinoza Martinez. He faced one count of murder-for-hire and up to 10 years in prison if convicted. Testimony lasted mere hours in the federal trial that was the latest test of the Trump administration’s credibility on federal surges that have played out from Minnesota to Maine.”
Prosecutors had argued that Espinoza Martinez used Snapchat to offer a $10,000 bounty on Greg Bovino, who has become one of the most prominent public faces of the immigration crackdown in large cities around the country and an enforcer for some of the most brutal policies to round up immigrants and subdue protesters.
Bovino has found himself a target for anger in the communities he enters. In Minnesota, he had a bag of chips dumped over him at a store as protesters compared him to a Nazi. Earlier this week, he tried to personally deploy a smoke bomb at protesters, only to be forced to retreat as the wind carried the cloud back toward him and his officers.
This acquittal marks the latest in a string of high-profile prosecution failures by the Trump administration, which has sought to throw the book at anyone who steps out of line while demonstrating against immigration agents.
In another well-publicized case, former Fox News commentator turned D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro sought felony charges against Sean Dunn, a protester who threw a sandwich at an officer in Washington, D.C., downgraded to a misdemeanor after grand juries refused to indict, then failed to convict on those misdemeanor charges too.
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