Third grand jury refuses to indict DC woman accused of assaulting agent during ICE arrest

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/crime/for-third-time-grand-jury-refuses-to-indict-dc-woman-accused-of-assaulting-agent-during-ice-arrest-jeanine-pirro-sidney-reid-sandwich-guy/65-785e2e30-46cf-4e90-b81a-9e9c219c6750

45 comments

  1. A hat trick of failures for FOX News host Judge Jeanine

  3. We need to Weaponize jury nullification/ hung juries. Set a precedent. What will happen if prosecutors are unable to get conviction in cases involving direct action against this Administration and its goons? How many folks will sign up to be ICE when they know the citizens will treat them however they like without legal consequences?

    Good on these folks for leading from the front.

  4. Resist! They will definitely come after you if any of these people are indicted.

  5. A grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.

    Unless Trump is making the sandwich. That’s how bad the sandwich is.

  6. Not what they had in mind when they came up with the three strikes policy.

  7. More of this. Resist and obstruct fascism by every means possible.

  8. Beginning to wonder what else people might not be willing to indict for when kidnapper thugs in masks grab and assault citizens? ICE better start being a lot more careful. One day people will become willing to test it and see. I mean, if they feel like there is nothing left to lose, yeah, that probably is going to happen. ICE should be mindful that when that day comes, it will be over for THEM not us because there are many, many millions more of us than them and we haven’t even begun to fight.

  10. 3 strikes you’re out, right?

    Would be curious if her defense would weaponize this information in court. Without new evidence it lends itself to malicious prosecution if they keep convening grand juries to seek a conviction.

  11. Are they just going to continue putting it in front of grand juries until one of them indickts ’em”

  12. They had this problem in LA too. And with McCabe during Trump’s first term.

    It’s a sign of craptacular choices in prosecutors.

  15. If anyone is wondering what a political witch hunt *actually* looks like, this is it. Being shot down by a grand jury on three separate occasions means this case is weak af, especially since no evidence nor arguments to defend Ms. Reid are introduced to the grand jury at this stage in prosecution. So even without thinking of what defenses Ms. Reid has for allegedly causing “scrapes to the back of [the FBI agent’s] hand” three separate grand juries did not think a federal indictment was proper for this charge.

  16. A grand jury could indict a ham sandwich but after three times they couldn’t convince a grand jury? Most people wouldn’t waste the resources after the first time

  17. Why should they? All these guys wear no identifiable markings. No Trump supporter to date has explained how I am supposed to know if the white guy in face mask and jeans is ice or just a guy with a gun in the most common outfit in America…

  18. Now let’s see if they can indict a guy who threw a ham sandwich. This is all so dumb.

  19. Sorry, your honor, but stopping a crime isn’t a crime.

  20. Grand Jury is a super low bar to pass, and without the Defense even being present. The problem in LA was that ICE was incompetent and constantly got caught in lies.

  21. 3rd??
    If only they worked this hard at convicting child rapists .
    Release the Epstein files !!

  23. 3rd?? Is double jeopardy just not a thing anymore. What.

  24. “Time to move on to the Fourth Grand Jury” Says the D.C. federal AG. “We will continue till we find citizens able to be biased and bigoted.”

  26. If i was that agent i would be so embarrassed and demand they stop airing my “assault.”

  28. The complete article:

    WASHINGTON — A grand jury declined for a third time to indict a D.C. woman accused of assaulting an FBI agent during an inmate swap with ICE – a rare loss for federal prosecutors that could foreshadow further trouble if the case goes to trial.

    U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office said in a filing Monday it would move ahead with charging Sidney Lori Reid with a misdemeanor for the alleged assault outside the D.C. Jail in July. A magistrate judge had given prosecutors until Monday afternoon to secure an indictment against Reid or see the felony version of the assault charge dismissed.

    Grand juries decline to indict, known as a “no true bill,” in only a small fraction of federal cases. To secure an indictment prosecutors need only show probable cause a crime was committed. That’s much lower than the standard in criminal trials. A grand jury declining to indict three times on the same case is a warning the evidence may not stand up at trial, according to attorney Christopher Macchiaroli, a partner at Silverman Thompson Slutkin White who previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the federal prosecutor’s office in D.C.

    “Seeking an indictment for a third time is extremely rare and usually only reserved for the most serious of crimes,” Macchiaroli said. “If a governmental entity cannot convince a super majority 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.”

    Reid was arrested in July for allegedly resisting attempts to restrain her after she refused to back away from ICE officers who were conducting arrests outside the D.C. Jail. In the process, they said, an FBI agent received scrapes to the back of her hand.

    Prosecutors sought to indict Reid with an enhanced felony version of an assault charge that requires inflicting bodily injury on a federal officer and carries up to eight years in prison. The charge is the same offense filed earlier this month against a former DOJ employee accused of throwing a sandwich at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent.

    But, three subsequent grand juries declined to indict. Pirro’s office revealed the first two no true bills in court earlier this month. A magistrate judge said last week he would find probable cause, thus allowing the case to continue, but gave prosecutors until Monday at 5 p.m. to secure an indictment against Reid before a 30-day clock mandated by federal law ran out. Prosecutors acknowledged the third no true bill Monday in a filing saying they would instead proceed with a misdemeanor version of the charge.

    Reid’s attorneys, assistant federal public defenders Tezira Abe and Eugene Ohm, say she was arrested by officers who didn’t want to be filmed. Video evidence presented during a preliminary hearing captured an ICE officer telling Reid during her arrest, “You should have just stayed home and minded your business.”

    “Three grand juries have now declined to indict Ms. Reid for felony assault on a law enforcement officer,” Abe and Ohm said. “The U.S. Attorney can try to concoct crimes to quiet the people but in our criminal justice system, the citizens have the last word. We are anxious to present the misdemeanor case to a jury and to quickly clear Ms. Reid’s name.”

    In a statement to WUSA9 Monday evening, Pirro’s office stood by the decision to move forward in the case and said the grand juries’ refusals to indict didn’t mean no crime occurred.

    “In spite of that a United States magistrate judge held there was probable cause that a felony assault on a federal officer had occurred,” a spokesman for Pirro’s office said.

    Reid’s misdemeanor case was assigned Monday to U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan, a former deputy attorney general who was appointed to the federal bench in January by former President Joe Biden.

  29. Someone should bring a recording device into these deliberations.

  31. Explain to me while they’re allowed to seat unlimited grand juries

  32. If the grand jury already declined to prosecute, why were they able to try again with a new jury?

  33. “You can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride.” –Trump

    “The ride ends. Now.” –Grand Jury

  34. Well you know what they say Jeanine fourth bottle of vodka’s the charm

  36. INFO: does double jeopardy not apply to grand juries?

    If I’m reading this right 3 grand juries could find “no true bill”

    I’m wondering if Devin Stone of Legal Eagles will do a video on this.

  37. I mean, I’m glad, but why three times? Shouldn’t once be enough to put an end to it?

  39. Probably around time to start telling everyone you know about jury nullification

  40. So they were probably going to try to throw the book at her and give her eight years for an FBI agent getting a scrape on their hand, but the Jan 6ers are ok? Cool. Cool.

  44. > Reid was arrested in July for allegedly resisting attempts to restrain her after she refused to back away from ICE officers who were conducting arrests outside the D.C. Jail. In the process, they said, an FBI agent received scrapes to the back of her hand.

    > Prosecutors sought to indict Reid with an enhanced felony version of an assault charge that requires inflicting bodily injury on a federal officer and carries up to eight years in prison.

    I’m guessing any of the grand jury members that ever stubbed their toe and didn’t sue for it were unsympathetic

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