Prosecutor accused of misconduct in 'Broadview Six' case resigns, says US attorney 'scapegoated' her

CHICAGO (AP) — A prosecutor who has been accused of misconduct over a failed attempt to bring felony charges against six protesters of the federal immigration crackdown in Chicago has resigned, saying she was being treated as a scapegoat after the case fell apart.

In a scathing letter Thursday to Andrew Boutros, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, prosecutor Sheri Mecklenburg wrote that she was “retiring under protest.”

“You have forced me to choose between remaining silent while my professional reputation is destroyed and prematurely surrendering my cherished career," Mecklenburg wrote in the letter obtained by The Associated Press. "I choose the latter.”

Mecklenburg accused Boutros of “laying responsibility at my feet for a felony prosecution that you personally directed over my objection that the case was better suited to misdemeanor charges.”

“I was a convenient target to be scapegoated and publicly vilified,” she wrote.

Boutros’ office did not immediately return a request for comment on the letter. Joel Bertocchi, an attorney for Mecklenburg, declined to comment.

During protests last fall against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the Chicago area, Boutros' office moved to press felony charges against six people for allegedly conspiring to impede an officer during a protest at an immigration detention facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview.

A grand jury twice refused to indict the group after Mecklenburg, an attorney on the case, presented them with evidence.

In the following months, the charges fell apart, and in May, Boutros dismissed the case altogether. It was among a string of cases in which the Trump administration leveled charges at anti-immigration enforcement protesters that did not ultimately stick.

The protesters, who have come to be known as the “Broadview Six,” have accused Mecklenburg of prosecutorial misconduct in her interactions with jury members, and have asked U.S. District Judge April M. Perry to consider sanctions on her. Perry is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case Oct. 1.

In a motion filed Thursday, Mecklenburg informed the court of her retirement and asked to appear as an independent party in the case. The U.S. Attorney’s Office had previously barred her from filing “anything on her behalf” and told her she “could be disciplined or terminated if she did so," the motion read.

Terence Campbell, an attorney for Andre Martin, one of the former defendants, said Mecklenburg's “forced resignation letter raises a number of serious factual disputes" between her account and that of Boutros' office about why the case was brought.

Mayes-Osterman is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

FILE - People protest outside a federal immigration enforcement building in Broadview, Ill. on Sept. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Laura Bargfeld, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is canceling nearly $1 billion in spending approved by Congress, the White House announced on Friday, using a rare and contested power to axe funding for immigrant services and diversity-focused initiatives.

Trump's Office of Management and Budget described the funding cut as focused on “the most harmful government spending.”

Trump’s move was condemned by Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican in a tough re-election campaign and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Collins said in a statement that the action came without warning or consultation. She also said she would work to address with colleagues “these illegal actions.”

“Not only is the delay itself an impoundment that was not reported to Congress, but also it is a usurpation of Congress’s appropriations powers,” Collins said. “OMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding."

Typically, Congress can review the president’s proposed spending cuts before they take effect. But Trump made that all but impossible by announcing them with just five days left in the federal fiscal year. The Government Accountability Office says the maneuver, known as a “pocket rescission,” is illegal.

Collins called it the latest attempt by OMB to “undermine Congress’s Constitutional power of the purse.”

President Donald Trump speaks during an arrival ceremony with China's President Xi Jinping in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)