Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested this morning by the FBI on an obstruction charge, according to FBI Director Kash Patel.
Read the Dugan criminal complaint here:
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Open in new tab We started getting tips from a flood of sources Friday morning that Dugan was arrested at the Milwaukee County Courthouse. Wisconsin Right Now was first to break the news of Dugan’s arrest on our X page.
Then, Patel confirmed the arrest on his official X page.
“Just NOW, the FBI arrested Judge Hannah Dugan out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin on charges of obstruction — after evidence of Judge Dugan obstructing an immigration arrest operation last week,” the FBI Director wrote.
“We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject — an illegal alien — to evade arrest. Thankfully our agents chased down the perp on foot and he’s been in custody since, but the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public. We will have more to share soon. Excellent work @FBIMilwaukee,” Patel wrote.
Eduardo Flores Ruiz
Here is the criminal complaint for Eduardo Flores Ruiz:
Criminal Complaint_1 – Flores Ruiz, Eduardo; 2025CM000814; Flores Ruiz, Eduardo_26163591_1-1
The complaint charges Ruiz with domestic-violence-related battery and says that he told police that there was a fight that arose because he was playing loud music.
He was accused of intentionally elbowing a woman, causing her pain and bruising. Ruiz was also accused of striking his roommate 30 times with a closed fist and shouting obscenities when the man confronted him about the music, the complaint says. The roommate’s girlfriend tried to intervene, and Ruis struck her with a closed fist too and shoved her, the complaint says. He is also accused of grabbing the roommate by the neck.
He was given a $1,500 signature bond by Court Commissioner Andrea Bolender earlier in the case.
The Initial Incident Involving Hannah Dugan
We previously obtained an April 18 email that Chief Judge Carl Ashley sent out when the situation with Dugan first occurred. “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents came into the Courthouse Complex this morning, April 18, 2025,” he wrote.
“They identified themselves when they came through security. They went to the Historic Courthouse on the sixth floor. They were asked whether they had a warrant and the agent presented the warrant as well as their identification,” Ashley wrote. “They were asked to go to the Chief Judge’s office. They complied. DCA Garbo and I spoke to the agents. They presented a warrant which we copied. They were asked to wait until the court hearing ended. All of the agent’s actions were consistent with our draft polices, but we’re still in the process of conferring on the draft.”
Dugan was first elected to the Milwaukee bench in 2016. She previously worked as a civil attorney, a litigation attorney for Legal Aid Society and Legal Action of Wisconsin, in-house counsel for Catholic Charities of Southeastern Wisconsin, Inc., and as an instructor at Marquette University, according to her LinkedIn page. She is a graduate of UW-Madison.
Dugan “disputed this in an email in response to Ashley Monday morning, saying ‘a warrant was not presented in the hallway on the 6th floor,’” talk show host Dan O’Donnell alleged. O’Donnell first broke word of the incident.
The exact details are contradicted by different sources.
“She allowed the defendant to hide in her jury room (which is normally off-limits to everyone except the judge and members of the jury),” O’Donnell alleged. “The ICE agents presented their warrant to Chief Judge Carl Ashley, who sent them back to Dugan’s courtroom to arrest the defendant. The FBI was notified about Dugan’s apparent obstruction of justice and is currently investigating.”
However, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel previously reported that the jury room angle was inaccurate and, instead, “when ICE officials left to talk with the chief judge on the same floor, Dugan took the pair to a side door in the courtroom, directed them down a private hallway and into the public area on the 6th floor.” The FBI has not clarified those details.
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