A federal judge upheld the conviction Tuesday of a former Wisconsin judge who helped an illegal immigrant evade U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman declined to reconsider the conviction of former Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan.
Judge Lynn Adelman also declined to set a new date for sentencing after he had already delayed Dugan’s sentencing from June 3.
Dugan’s lawyers said in a statement that Adelman’s decision was “wrong.”
Her legal team cited United States v. Hernandez, where an immigrant detained by ICE escaped, was apprehended again, and was indicted on one count of obstructing a pending immigration hearing.
He was convicted, but a federal appeals court overturned that conviction in April.
But the lawyers said Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, the Mexican immigrant she escorted out a private door of the courthouse to avoid ICE officers, was facing an arrest warrant, not a pending proceeding.
Judge Adelman, a former Democratic state legislator and a Bill Clinton appointee, was not convinced by this argument.
“At oral argument, defendant noted that ICE goes out every day to try to arrest people on the street,” Adelman wrote in his ruling.
He echoed the defense’s argument, writing, “Given the estimated 10 million undocumented persons in the United States, does that mean there are 10 million pending proceedings?”
The federal judge added that Dugan “insists that there needs to be some formality, i.e., a proceeding before an agency involving parties trying to come to a determination, an adjudication.”
“The problem for the defense is that this case did not involve some random encounter on the street,” he continued.
“It was a targeted operation, conducted pursuant to agency procedures, including the issuance of an arrest warrant for a specific person, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz.”
Dugan was found guilty of obstruction charges in December.
She faces up to five years in prison for obstruction, the more serious of the charges, though first-time offenders rarely receive the harshest punishment.
🚨 JUST IN: A federal judge has UPHELD the felony conviction against former Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan, who was found GUILTY of helping an illegal evade ICE agents at the courthouse
Dugan now faces up to FIVE YEARS in prison, disbarment, and steep fines.
FAFO! 🔥
h/t… pic.twitter.com/7xCdBepW98
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) June 16, 2026
Back in April, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued an administrative order directing Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan to be “temporarily relieved of her official duties.”
Dugan was arrested and charged with obstruction of an official procedure after evidence surfaced that she had concealed an illegal immigrant from federal authorities.
She was also charged with hiding a person to avoid detection and arrest.
At the time, the FBI detained Dugan for allegedly sheltering a previously deported illegal immigrant in the jury chamber to prevent him from being caught by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.
Federal authorities from ICE, FBI, CBP, and DEA sought to apprehend Mexican citizen Eduardo Flores-Ruiz following his scheduled criminal court appearance before Dugan on April 18 to face three misdemeanor battery charges for allegedly assaulting two persons.
According to the lawsuit, Dugan ordered the police to go to the chief judge’s office and, following his hearing, took Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out a restricted jury door, bypassing the public area where agents were waiting to aid him in escaping arrest.
Then-Attorney General Pam Bondi blasted Dugan’s actions in April.
“We could not believe that a judge really did that,” Bondi said.
“You cannot obstruct a criminal case. And really, shame on her. It was a domestic violence case of all cases, and she’s protecting a criminal defendant over victims of crime,” Bondi added.
Bondi said Flores-Ruiz beat up two people, “a guy and a girl.”
“[He] beat the guy, hit the guy 30 times, knocked him to the ground, choked him, beat up a woman so badly; they both had to go to the hospital,” she said.
