Contribution
This is the verbatim record of the first federal grand-jury presentation in the “Broadview Six” case. It covers three things:
- the prosecutor’s opening appeal to the panel’s trust in her;
- the whole of the evidence offered, which was one FBI agent’s testimony, videos, 10 or fewer of about 51 photos, and social-media identifications;
- the jurors’ questions and the prosecutor’s legal instructions.
With Doc. 230-1 the whole session is now public. The redacted version could not show the testimony that jurors were reacting to.
Key insight
The case the jurors heard was entirely second-hand and circumstantial:
- The driver’s fear, his speed of 1–2 mph and the car’s prior “like-new” condition all came from the driver through the FBI agent, as leading yes/no questions.
- The identifications rested on Instagram posts, a “like”, a tag, a press conference and a Google search for “guitar girl Broadview ICE” (tr. 29–53).
The prosecutor opened by putting her personal trustworthiness behind the charge. Despite that, the jurors’ questions (tr. 53–75) went to exactly the gaps in second-hand evidence:
- Why didn’t he stop?
- Were the scratches there before?
- Was the truck driver behind him interviewed?
- Was he on duty yet?
Assumptions
For a court record these are the authorities and premises the proceeding rests on.
- Charges sought, as the prosecutor stated them:
- Count 1, 18 U.S.C. §372, conspiracy to “hinder and impede” an officer. She read the statute at tr. 61–62.
- Counts 2–7, 18 U.S.C. §111 simple-assault misdemeanours, one per defendant. She said she was not asking for the felony form (tr. 67, 74).
- Standard: probable cause. The prosecutor told jurors “we’re not here to put on the whole trial, just the probable cause” (tr. 70). The agent confirmed he was “not testifying about everything you know” (tr. 11).
- The damage attributed to the incident depends on Agent A’s statement that none of it pre-existed (tr. 30). The agent said vehicle-damage records and fingerprints were “still ongoing” and “pending” (tr. 59–60).
- Identification method: open-source photos compared by law enforcement with video stills. The agent answered “Yes” to “Did law enforcement recognize …” for each defendant.
Key results
What the record shows, in transcript order:
- Opening (tr. 3–5).
- “I purposely asked if I could wait for the Thursday grand jury … Matt will vouch for me. I said I want to go in front of the Thursday grand jury because I know you and I trust you and you know me and you trust me, and I would never ask you to charge somebody if I didn’t think there was probable cause” (tr. 3).
- “I don’t charge people unless I’m absolutely sure” (tr. 4).
- She then gave the standard admonitions: put aside politics, probable cause only, not sympathy or public opinion (tr. 4–5).
- Preview of the facts (tr. 5–8), which she labelled “not evidence”. She described:
- the crowd surrounding the car, banging on it and pushing against it;
- “Pig” scratched into it;
- her own view, “This is definitely not testimony”, that “by that agent keeping his cool … nobody got hurt” (tr. 7).
- Testimony (tr. 10–53).
- Agent A: 24 years with ICE, based outside Illinois, on temporary assignment. He was driving an unmarked government car, assigned April 2025, “like-new” (tr. 20–21).
- He showed credentials to Broadview police at 25th and Harvard, then was surrounded. He heard “sharp cracks” he assumed were rings. He feared being “dragged out”, drove at “one to two miles per hour”, and his priority was “not to injure anybody” (tr. 22–24).
- Since the incident he has changed his car and his hotel (tr. 24).
- The agent photographed the car on 1 Oct and identified dents, scratches, the broken passenger-side mirror, the broken rear wiper and “Pig” (photos 13, 15, 16, 18, 36, 39, 41, 42, 44–46, 48, 49; tr. 25–29).
- Mid-testimony the prosecutor said “this case has nothing to do with First Amendment rights” (tr. 17).
- Identifications. Each defendant was tied to the scene as follows:
- Abughazaleh: her own Instagram posts before and during the incident (tr. 31–37).
- Sharp: through Abughazaleh’s “like” of a third party’s post that tagged “Cat Sharp” (tr. 37–41).
- Rabbitt: a photo on Sharp’s social media (tr. 41–44). The slide wrongly read “Brian Rabbit”, which the prosecutor attributed to “typing it late last night” (tr. 42).
- Straw: a press conference in which he said he took part (tr. 44–47).
- Martin: a post saying he worked for Abughazaleh, and the same gray hoodie on another protest day (tr. 47–50).
- Walsh: a Google search for “guitar girl Broadview ICE” that led to a third party’s post naming her (tr. 51–53).
- The conduct the agent confirmed: hands on or pushing against the car. For Rabbitt and Walsh he said “It appears so” (tr. 44, 53).
- Juror questions to the witness and the prosecutor (tr. 53–61).
- Why no call for backup? Answer: he feared someone “stuck under the car”.
- “Couldn’t he have stopped?” She replied “Well, didn’t you hear the testimony … he was afraid to stop”.
- Was the trailing truck driver interviewed? “That’s not evidence that we’re presenting today.”
- Could the scratches predate the incident, given the car “sat there for five days”? The agent: “right now it’s the testimony of the agent.”
- The prosecutor: “This is argument … not his testimony … you can use your common sense, which is why I came to the Thursday grand jury” (tr. 60).
- Law (tr. 61–75), as the prosecutor stated it. These are her statements; this reading does not assess them.
- “A conspiracy is just an agreement”, which can be made “by action”, with no prior planning required, and “anyone in the conspiracy is responsible for anything anyone else does”. She used a bank-robbery analogy (tr. 63–65).
- Bystanders who filmed were identified but not charged (tr. 65–66).
- On whether a driver may drive into someone standing in front of the car: “We are not going — we don’t need to address that today because it didn’t happen” (tr. 72).
- To a juror’s “It’s just luck”: “It was not luck. It was his calmness and his judgment” (tr. 73).
- Close (tr. 74–76).
- “We believe that we have shown you probable cause.”
- A juror asked why misdemeanours were being indicted at all.
- “GRAND JURY: I personally feel the complete opposite way.” / “MS. MECKLENBURG: … You have a right to feel that way” (tr. 75).
- The transcript ends; the reporter’s certificate is signed by Steven J. Brickey (tr. 77). There is no vote.
Claims
| id | claim | strength | support |
|---|---|---|---|
| C1 | The prosecutor told the jurors she waited for this panel because of mutual trust and “would never ask you to charge somebody if I didn’t think there was probable cause” | primary record | tr. 3–4, verbatim |
| C2 | The only witness was an FBI agent; the ICE driver did not testify | primary record | tr. 9–10, 17–24, 61 |
| C3 | The driver’s fear, speed and the car’s prior condition reached the jury only as hearsay via the agent | primary record | tr. 17–24, 30 (leading “Did he say …” questions) |
| C4 | The attribution of the damage to 26 Sept rested on the driver’s say-so; records and fingerprints were pending | primary record (witness’s own answer) | tr. 30, 59–60 |
| C5 | Identifications rested on social-media posts, a like, a tag, a press conference and a Google search | primary record | tr. 29–53 |
| C6 | Jurors voiced doubt on stopping, the scratches, duty status and the misdemeanours; one said “the complete opposite way” | primary record | tr. 53–75 |
| C7 | This panel returned a “no bill” | press report, not in the transcript | Capitol News Illinois, 2026-06-10 |
| C8 | Judge Perry characterized the opening as “putting her personal credibility and trustworthiness on the line in support of the charges” | press report of the sealed 21 May 2026 hearing minutes; not in this document | Capitol News Illinois, 2026-06-10 |
Concepts
- Grand-jury “no bill”
- Prosecutorial vouching
- Hearsay before a grand jury
- Leading examination
- 18 U.S.C. §372 conspiracy “by action”
- 18 U.S.C. §111 simple assault
- Open-source (social-media) identification
Connections
- The 16 Oct 2025 session is Doc. 220, where press reports a juror was dismissed after calling the case “a crock”. The 23 Oct session, which returned the indictment, is Doc. 221. Both are in the same Capitol News Illinois PDF.
- A defence reply brief (Doc. 255) and emptywheel (2026-09-20) argue that the 16 Oct transcript’s timestamps do not match the audio recording. That dispute does not concern this 9 Oct session and was not checked here.
- Sun-Times (2026-09-23) reports a hearing set for 1 Oct 2026 on the consequences of the misconduct findings.
Bearing on the record
This is a court record filed under society-and-governance. It carries nothing for ML practice, and no document in the anthology bears on it.
Limitations
- The transcript does not record the vote, the deliberations, or the videos and photos themselves.
- The characterisation of the conduct as vouching or misconduct belongs to the judge as reported and to defence counsel, not to this document.
- Two short redactions remain.
- The prosecutor’s statements of law are recorded here, not evaluated.
- Page references are to transcript pages. Doc. 219 PDF pages 1–10 are tr. 1–10, and PDF pages 11–35 are tr. 53–77. Doc. 230-1 PDF page n is tr. n+8 (PDF p. 2 = tr. 10).
Open questions
- Is the DocumentCloud copy 28220756 identical to Doc. 219? The page count agrees, but the content was not directly read.
- What does Judge Perry’s written ruling on the misconduct (after the 1 Oct 2026 hearing) say about this session specifically?
Corrections to the seeded skim
- The testimony pages were redacted, not lost, and they have since been released. The dossier says Doc. 219 “jumps from transcript page 10 to page 53”.
- In Doc. 219, tr. 10 lines 5–25 and tr. 53 lines 1–19 are black-boxed, and tr. 11–52 are left out.
- The withheld portion was filed on 06/18/26 as Doc. 230-1, “Pursuant to the Court’s minute entry at Dkt. #223”. Doc. 230 describes it as “the remaining portion of the October 9, 2025, grand jury transcript … which bears additional redactions agreed upon by the parties”.
- The transcript is therefore now complete apart from two title redactions.
- The case caption is United States v. Rabbitt et al., No. 25 CR 693 (Judge April M. Perry). It is not “Abughazaleh et al.” The defendants, in order, are Michael Rabbitt, Katherine Marie Abughazaleh, Andre Martin, Brian Straw, Catherine Sharp and Joselyn Walsh (Doc. 230 caption).
- The dossier’s “an agent narrated protest videos” is not what the transcript shows. The witness was FBI SA Evan Hylton, “a little over four years” with the FBI, who “generally work[s] violent crimes” (tr. 10). The prosecutor played the videos, pointed out each person and put leading questions; the agent’s answers are almost all “Yes”.
- The driver (“Agent A”, an ICE agent) did not testify. His account reached the jury only as the FBI agent’s hearsay about two interviews: 30 Sept 2025 by phone, conducted by another FBI agent, and 1 Oct 2025 in person (tr. 17–24). Capitol News Illinois (2026-06-10) reports the same.
- Minor points:
- The transcript’s index lists “Direct Examination by Ms. Mecklenburg… 3 - 76” and Grand Jury Exhibit 1 at p. 14. The oath itself is at tr. 9–10.
- The prosecutor twice says “110” for §111 (tr. 8, 74).