Federal prosecutors on Monday filed a motion to dismiss the case against David Huerta, the labor leader who was arrested during the first day of a series of immigration raids that the Trump administration carried out in the region last summer.
In the court filing, prosecutors said “pursuant to an agreement of the parties,” they were moving to dismiss the indictment against Huerta, the president of the Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West, who was detained by federal agents while documenting an immigration raid on June 6.
The government initially charged Huerta with a felony count of conspiracy to impede an officer, but later downgraded itto a misdemeanor charge of “obstruction resistance or opposition of a federal officer.” He was set to go to trial next month.
At the time of his arrest, First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in L.A., blasted Huerta’s photo on X, stating, “Let me be clear: I don’t care who you are—if you impede federal agents, you will be arrested and prosecuted.”
In a statement, the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles maintained that the Department of Justice “does not arrest people for peacefully protesting” and that since Huerta’s arrest he “has not engaged in the same obstructive behavior that led to his arrest and criminal charges being filed against him.”
“Mr. Huerta has agreed to accept responsibility for his actions,” the office said. “Pursuant to an agreement entered into with our office, if Mr. Huerta continues to comply with his pretrial release terms, we expect the criminal case against him to be fully dismissed by the end of next month.”
But Huerta hailed the move for a dismissal as vindication he did nothing wrong.
“This means the government is finally admitting what we knew from day one and what was obvious to anyone who saw the videos: the charge against me was baseless, meant to intimidate anyone who dares to speak out, organize, or demand justice,” Huerta said in a statement. “There was never a real case, only an attempt to punish and silence me for exercising my constitutional rights.”
It’s the latest protest case that has unraveled for the U.S. attorney’s office in L.A. Under Essayli, federal prosecutors in L.A. have aggressively charged protesters with assaulting and impeding the actions of immigration agents, filing more than 100 cases.
According to data from June, prosecutors have secured guilty pleas in 40 of those cases — but lost nearly every case that has gone to trial.
“This case revealed that the Department of Justice was willing to charge a labor leader with a crime, hold it over him for months, and then walk away from it once the charge couldn’t survive scrutiny,” Huerta’s attorneys, Abbe Lowell and Marilyn Bednarski, said in a joint statement. “That is not how a justice system is supposed to work. Our country needs more brave leaders like David Huerta to stand up for the wrongs they see around them.”
The post A year after California labor leader arrested at immigration protest, feds move to drop case appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
