Federal Judge April Perry is considering whether to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate potential misconduct by the US Attorney’s office.
At a hearing Thursday, Perry told prosecutors she would be issuing a list of evidence that U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros and his team must turn over that could shed more light on how prosecutors mishandled the Broadview Six case, to the point they had to drop all charges.
Specifically, Perry seemed intent on finding out whether Boutros and his team were acting on orders from outside the office, referring to the Trump Department of Justice, and whether those orders were to carry out a politically motivated prosecution.
The ‘Broadview Six’ defendants were arrested in October 2025 after a skirmish with federal agents outside the Broadview Ice facility. They initially faced felony charges of conspiring to impede a federal agent, but prosecutors had difficulty convincing grand jurors to bring charges, with one famously saying he thought the case was a “crock of shit.”
“My sole focus at this point is on the lack of candor, concealment of material facts, or other misconduct that occurred,” Perry told attorneys at Thursday’s hearing. “And whether or not that misconducted constituted a crime.”
It’s the latest escalation in scrutiny on Boutros and a US Attorney’s Office that has now dropped several cases tied to a botched grand jury process in the Broadview Six case.
“They’re the chief law enforcement agent in this district,” said Broadview Six defense attorney Chris Parente, who has led the charge to uncover misconduct in the case. “So if they’re not following the rules, how could they enforce the rules on anybody?”
In previous hearings, Boutros admitted to the mistakes and claimed to have taken action as soon as he learned of them. He has put the lion’s share of the blame on former prosecutor Sheri Mecklenberg, who admitted to some misconduct in her handling of the grand jury. But Mecklenberg says she was taking her orders from the “Top of the office,” and kept them informed every step of the way.
Mecklenberg says the Front Office demanded a transcript of grand jury proceedings from her on October 9, the day she tried and failed to convince grand jurors to bring charges. She says she produced the documents right away, which is in contradiction to Boutros’ timeline of events.
“She did not try to hide anything she said or did in the October 9th Grand Jury session,” attorneys for Mecklenberg said in a court filing.
Perry approved their motion for Mecklenberg to intervene in the case, which means she will now be a witness and her testimony will factor into the final decision.
Perry today also ruled that the federal government must pay attorney’s fees for the Broadview Six defendants because of the federal “Hyde Amendment” law that requires reimbursement for “bad faith prosecution.”
She says she will appoint UChicago Consitutional law expert William Baude as an outside counsel. He’ll be charged with filing an Amicus Brief that would clarify what powers the judge has under the consitution to appoint a special prosecutor and who that prosecutor would ultimately answer to.
That report is due in December.
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