U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office said it will move forward with charging Sidney Reid with a lesser misdemeanor version of the assault charge.

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.

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.

  • memfree@piefed.socialEnglish
    221·
    3 days ago

    Let this be a reminder to all called to jury duty (grand or otherwise) that you do not have to convict.

    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.

    and:

    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.”

    Lady is trying to film. Legal. An agent gets scrapes while trying to stop her. Lady is charged 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.”

    Say NO.

    • jonne@infosec.pub
      68·
      3 days ago

      And grand juries are famously easy to persuade, as this is just the prosecutor and whatever evidence they choose to present, there’s no defence lawyer involved. The case is either ridiculously thin, or the prosecutor just doesn’t know how to do their job.

      • jacksilver@lemmy.world
        42·
        3 days ago

        Since grand juries are also usually local, it’s also possible that they’ve pissed off enough people around DC that any case involving ICE won’t go through.

      • Cenzorrll@lemmy.world
        14·
        2 days ago

        I was on a grand jury and yeah, it’s basically prosecutor/cop saying “they did crime” and as a member of the jury it’s your job to decide “is maybe possibly a crime did” so really you have zero information as to what happened, just a “trust me bro”. So the fact that this got shut down AT ALL is screaming Incompetent prosecutor, very competent prosecutor who knows its horseshit, thinnest case to ever be cased, or (incredibly unlikely) a grand jury who knows their shit.

      • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
        9·
        2 days ago

        Honestly, this is so rare it makes me wonder if the prosecutor really wants to indict the woman. We have seen prosecutors using grand juries to not indict (cops) without accepting responsibility for it before. May be a prosecutor with some morals but under great pressure to support ICE.

        Of course also possible that people can finally see through what is happening and are not buying the BS.

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
      14·
      3 days ago

      Imagine that room. The Prosecutors are doing their best to paint this woman as an out-of-control, rabid beast, while the entire room is looking at him with their arms crossed, a smirk on every single face.

      And then they do it two more times, with the same result.

      That job sucks.