The Justice Department announced on Friday that 30 additional people have been charged with disrupting a Sunday worship service with a protest during the peak of the immigration crackdown in Minnesota. The new indictments bring the total number of people accused in the protest to 39, including Don Lemon, the former CNN anchor.
The demonstration on Jan. 18 took place at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minn., where one of the pastors, David Easterwood, is also a senior official at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Mr. Easterwood was not at the church during the service that day.
Attorney General Pam Bondi has made the case a top priority, even as the Department of Justice has faced criticism over the arrests of two defendants who are journalists, including Mr. Lemon.
“YOU CANNOT ATTACK A HOUSE OF WORSHIP,” Ms. Bondi said in a social media post Friday afternoon, after an updated indictment with 39 names was unsealed. “This Department of Justice STANDS for Christians and all Americans of faith.”
Several people charged in the case have called the prosecution an effort to stifle dissent over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. On the day of the church service, protesters chanted slogans criticizing the immigration roundup in Minnesota that began late last year and led to violent clashes, thousands of arrests and the fatal shootings of two American citizens.
“I have no regrets,” said William Kelly, an Army veteran who is charged in the case and is married to one of the newly indicted, Ariel Hauptman. “I stood up for the Constitution.”
The case had a troubled start after a federal judge in Minnesota declined to sign off on arrest warrants for two of the original defendants, Mr. Lemon and Georgia Fort, an independent journalist, finding that prosecutors had lacked probable evidence that crimes had been committed.
The new charges come at a time when the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota is reeling from a staffing shortage that has been exacerbated by the departure of several experienced litigators over the immigration crackdown.
All 39 defendants are charged with two crimes: conspiring to violate religious freedoms at a house of worship and injuring, intimidating and interfering with the exercise of religious freedoms at a place of worship.
The nine protesters and journalists who were originally charged in the case have entered not guilty pleas and have expressed confidence that the charges will be dropped or that they will be acquitted at trial. It was not certain on Friday how many of the new defendants have lawyers.
The investigation has been led by the Justice Department’s civil rights office, which has also been hollowed out by mass resignations over the past year.
“We are going to pursue this to the ends of the earth,” Harmeet K. Dhillon, the head of the office, said in a podcast interview last month.
Ernesto Londoño is a Times reporter based in Minnesota, covering news in the Midwest and drug use and counternarcotics policy. He welcomes tips and can be reached at elondono.81 on Signal.
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