MILWAUKEE (AP) — Prosecutors played audio recordings Monday as they tried to show jurors that a Wisconsin judge knew what was at stake earlier this year when she directed an immigrant to a private door while federal agents were in the courthouse to arrest the man.
“I’ll get the heat," Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan told her court reporter as they discussed who would assist Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, according to courtroom audio.
Click to Gallery
CORRECTS IDENTIFICATION This courtroom sketch depicts show FBI agent Erin Lucker on the stand during Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan trial on Monday, Dec. 15, 2025 in Milwaukee, Wis. (Adela Tesnow via AP, Pool)
This courtroom sketch depicts defense attorney Steven Biskupic during Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan's trial on Monday, Dec. 15, 2025 in Milwaukee, Wis. (Adela Tesnow via AP, Pool)
This courtroom sketch depicts Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan in court on Monday, Dec. 15, 2025 in Milwaukee, Wis. (Adele Tesnow via AP, Pool)
This courtroom sketch depicts Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan in court as jury selection in her trial begins Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025 in Milwaukee, Wis. (Adele Tesnow via AP)
Federal prosecutors charged Dugan with obstruction and concealment in April, an extraordinary consequence of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. According to an FBI affidavit, a team of six federal agents and officers traveled to the Milwaukee County courthouse on April 18 to arrest Flores-Ruiz, 31, for being in the country illegally.
Flores-Ruiz was facing state battery charges and was scheduled to appear at a hearing in front of Dugan that morning. The team planned to arrest him when he came out of the hearing.
According to the affidavit, Dugan learned the agents and officers were in the hallway waiting for Flores-Ruiz. She left the courtroom and told them to consult with the chief judge. After several agents left to see the chief judge, she led Flores-Ruiz out of her courtroom through a private back door.
The private door led Flores-Ruiz back to the public hallway. Agents followed him outside and eventually arrested him after a foot chase. He was deported months later.
Courthouse video shows Dugan directing members of the arrest team toward the chief judge's office and she hasn't disputed that she led Flores-Ruiz out of the courtroom. The case hinges on whether she was intentionally trying to prevent his arrest.
Prosecutors opened her trial Monday in federal court in Milwaukee by working to show that the judge told the agents to see the chief judge to create an opening for Flores-Ruiz to escape.
FBI Special Agent Erin Lucker testified that while agents were in the chief judge's office, Dugan moved Flores-Ruiz's case to the top of her docket, scheduled another hearing for him and told him he could appear via Zoom before directing him out through the back door. All this was done within minutes, Lucker said.
Prosecutors played audio from her courtroom in which Dugan and her court reporter discussed who should lead Flores-Ruiz out of the courtroom. After the reporter offered to help him, Dugan said that she'd do it.
“I'll get the heat,” Dugan said.
The arrest team "did not expect a judge, sworn to uphold the law, would divide their arrest team and impede their efforts to do their jobs,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Keith Alexander told jurors.
Defense attorney Steven Biskupic countered that the judge had no intention of obstructing agents. He said during his opening statements that Dugan was following a draft courthouse policy that called for court personnel to refer immigration agents looking to make an arrest in the courthouse to supervisors.
Dugan didn't obstruct the team, Biskupic said, pointing out that two agents who didn't go to the chief judge's office could have arrested Flores-Ruiz as soon as he stepped into the public corridor but instead followed him outside before trying to apprehend him.
“Now, after the fact, everyone wants to blame Judge Dugan,” Biskupic told the jury.
The government’s case is expected to run through Thursday, with roughly two dozen witnesses expected to testify. The maximum sentence for the more serious charge, obstruction, is five years in prison, though federal judges have much discretion to go lower.
Ahead of the trial, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman declined to dismiss the charges, saying there was no firmly established immunity for Dugan.
Democrats say Trump is looking to make an example of Dugan to blunt judicial opposition to immigration arrests. Dugan told police she and her family found threatening flyers at their homes this spring. The administration has branded her an activist judge.
Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, a fierce Trump loyalist running for Wisconsin governor next year, urged authorities to “lock her up” in a recent tweet.
Associated Press writer Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report.
CORRECTS IDENTIFICATION This courtroom sketch depicts show FBI agent Erin Lucker on the stand during Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan trial on Monday, Dec. 15, 2025 in Milwaukee, Wis. (Adela Tesnow via AP, Pool)
This courtroom sketch depicts defense attorney Steven Biskupic during Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan's trial on Monday, Dec. 15, 2025 in Milwaukee, Wis. (Adela Tesnow via AP, Pool)
This courtroom sketch depicts Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan in court on Monday, Dec. 15, 2025 in Milwaukee, Wis. (Adele Tesnow via AP, Pool)
This courtroom sketch depicts Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan in court as jury selection in her trial begins Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025 in Milwaukee, Wis. (Adele Tesnow via AP)
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A mass shooting in which 15 people were killed during a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach was “a terrorist attack inspired by Islamic State,” Australia’s federal police commissioner Krissy Barrett said Tuesday.
The suspects were a father and son, aged 50 and 24, authorities have said. The older man, whom state officials named as Sajid Akram, was shot dead. His son was being treated at a hospital.
A news conference by political and law enforcement leaders on Tuesday was the first time officials confirmed their beliefs about the suspects' ideologies. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the remarks were based on evidence obtained, including “the presence of Islamic State flags in the vehicle that has been seized.”
There are 25 people still being treated in hospitals after Sunday’s massacre, 10 of them in critical condition. Three of them are patients in a children's hospital.
Also among them is Ahmed al Ahmed, who was captured on video tackling and disarming one assailant, before pointing the man’s weapon at him and then setting it on the ground.
Those killed ranged in age from 10 to 87 years old. They were attending a Hanukkah event at Australia's most famous beach Sunday when the gunshots rang out.
Albanese and the leaders of some of Australia's states have pledged to tighten the country's already strict gun laws in what would be the most sweeping reforms since a shooter killed 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania, in 1996. Mass shootings in Australia have since been rare.
Officials divulged more information as public questions and anger grew on the third day following the attack about how the suspects were able to plan and enact it and whether Australian Jews had been sufficiently protected from rising antisemitism.
Albanese announced plans to further restrict access to guns, in part because it emerged the older suspect had amassed his cache of six weapons legally.
“The suspected murderers, callous in how they allegedly coordinated their attack, appeared to have no regard for the age or ableness of their victims,” said Barrett. “It appears the alleged killers were interested only in a quest for a death tally.”
The suspects traveled to the Philippines last month, said Mal Lanyon, the Police Commissioner for New South Wales state. Their reasons for the trip and where in the Philippines they went would be probed by investigators, Lanyon said.
He also confirmed that a vehicle removed from the scene, registered to the younger suspect, contained improvised explosive devices.
“I also confirm that it contained two homemade ISIS flags,” Lanyon said.
The Philippines Bureau of Immigration confirmed Tuesday that Sajid Akram traveled to the country from Nov. 1 to Nov. 28 along with Naveed Akram, 24, giving the city of Davao as their final destination. Australian authorities have not named the younger suspect.
Groups of Muslim separatist militants, including Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines, once expressed support for the Islamic State group and have hosted small numbers of foreign militant combatants from Asia, the Middle East and Europe in the past.
Decades of military offensives, however, have considerably weakened Abu Sayyaf and other such armed groups, and Philippine military and police officials say there has been no recent indication of any foreign militants in the country’s south.
Earlier, Albanese visited al Ahmed in a hospital. Albanese said the 42-year-old Syrian-born fruit shop owner had further surgery scheduled on Wednesday for shotgun wounds to his left shoulder and upper body.
“It was a great honor to met Ahmed al Ahmed. He is a true Australian hero,” Albanese told reporters after a 30-minute meeting with him and his parents.
“We are a brave country. Ahmed al Ahmed represents the best of our country. We will not allow this country to be divided. That is what the terrorists seek. We will unite. We will embrace each other, and we’ll get through this,” Albanese added.
The famous blue-shirted lifeguards of Bondi Beach attracted praise as more stories of their actions during the shooting emerged.
One duty lifeguard, identified by the organization’s Instagram account as Rory Davey, performed an ocean rescue during the shooting after people fled, fully clothed, into the sea.
Another lifeguard, Jackson Doolan, posted to his social media a photo taken as he sprinted, barefoot and clutching a first aid kit, from Tamarama beach a mile away toward Bondi as the massacre continued.
“These guys are community members and it’s not about the surf,” Anthony Caroll, one of the stars of a popular reality television show called “Bondi Rescue,” told Sky News on Tuesday. “They heard the gunshots and they left the beach and came right up the back here into the scene of the crime, into harm’s way while those bullets were being shot.”
Israeli Ambassador to Australia Amir Maimon visited the scene of the carnage on Tuesday and was welcomed by Jewish leaders.
“I’m not sure that my vocabulary is rich enough to express how I feel. My heart is torn apart because the Jewish community, the Australians of Jewish faith, the Jewish community is also my community,” Maimon said.
Thousands have visited Bondi from all walks of life since the tragedy to pay their respects and lay flowers on a mounting pile at an impromptu memorial site.
One of the visitors on Tuesday was former Prime Minister John Howard, who was responsible the the 1996 overhaul of gun laws and an associated buyback of newly outlawed weapons.
In the aftermath of Sunday's shooting, a record number of Australians signed up to donate blood. On Monday alone close to 50,000 appointments were booked, more than double the previous record, the national donation organization Lifeblood told The Associated Press.
Almost 1,300 people signed up to donate for the first time. Such was the enthusiasm at Lifeblood’s Bondi location that appointments to give blood were unavailable before Dec. 31, according to the organization’s website.
A total of 7,810 donations of blood, plasma and platelets were made across the country on Monday, spokesperson Cath Stone said. Australian news outlets reported queues of up to four hours at some Sydney donation sites.
Graham-McLay reported from Wellington, New Zealand.
People offer flowers and hugs at a floral memorial during a tribute for victims of Sunday's shooting at the Bondi Pavilion at Bondi Beach on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Sydney, Australia. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
British Consul General Louise Cantillon, arrives at a memorial with flowers and a wreath during a tribute for victims of Sunday's shooting at the Bondi Pavilion at Bondi Beach on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Sydney, Australia. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
In this photo released by the Prime Minister office, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets Ahmed al Ahmed at St George Hospital in Sydney, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025. (Australian Prime Minister Office via AP)
Former PM John Howard waves during a flower memorial for victims of Sunday's shooting at the Bondi Pavilion at Bondi Beach on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Sydney, Australia. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
Rabbi Yossi Friedman speaks to people gathering at a flower memorial by the Bondi Pavilion at Bondi Beach on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, following Sunday's shooting in Sydney, Australia. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
