Broadview 6 prosecutor retires under protest, blames U.S. attorney

Sheri Mecklenburg stepped down from the Justice Department this week, using her resignation letter to accuse U. S. Attorney Andrew Boutros of steering the prosecution of six protesters arrested outside the Broadview ICE facility near Chicago during 2025's Operation Midway Blitz, then pinning its collapse on her. She had overseen the grand jury work behind felony conspiracy and misdemeanor obstruction charges against the group; the felonies were later dropped, and the remaining misdemeanors were dismissed with prejudice just before trial once misconduct allegations tied to the grand jury proceedings surfaced, according to CBS News.

Appearing before U. S. District Judge April Perry, Boutros did not contest the allegations, which included a prosecutor vouching for the case's strength and improper outside contact with jurors; he said he learned some details only in late April, though he had known since fall that skeptical jurors had been dismissed. Mecklenburg's letter, published in full by The New York Times, contends Boutros's office shut her out of the misconduct proceedings, blocked her from answering claims she "outright lied" to the grand jury, and wrongly cast her as indifferent to fights over sealed transcripts she says she never knew about. She also says Boutros insisted on felony charges over her preference for misdemeanors, writing: "You recklessly agreed in court that I had committed misconduct without even asking for my account."

Summarized by PolitiKool from CBS News’s reporting. Read the full story at CBS News →