3 Spokane ICE protesters found guilty in conspiracy case

May 28-Three Spokane protesters accused of conspiring against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were found guilty Thursday by a federal jury after an eight-day trial that examined the boundaries between First Amendment rights and when protesting turns into a federal crime.

The three were part of an ICE protest in June of last year that formed as agents attempted to transport a group of immigration detainees to Tacoma.

It is the first-known case in the Eastern District of Washington where the government has chosen to pursue charges against a group of protesters for conspiracy against ICE. The trio has become known as the "Spokane 3."

The government said military combat veteran Bajun Mavalwalla II, activist Justice Forral and activist and Gonzaga Law School alum Jac Archer engaged in conspiracy against ICE agents on June 11 to impede them in their duties or injure them or their property.

They face up to six years in prison. No sentencing date has been set.

Following the verdict, the three hugged their attorneys, and the attorneys hugged the other defendants.

Many people in the gallery cried.

"The verdict was painfully disappointing," said Archer's attorney, Carl Oreskovich. "I think it was an extraordinarily aggressive approach to prosecution of protests. And it certainly is going to chill people who want to utilize their First Amendment right to dissent against government actions that they don't agree with ... And it is heartbreaking to see that is the climate of the nation we live in."

The day of the protest, agents were attempting to transport a group of detained immigrants to a Tacoma detention center in a bus when former Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart posted a call to action on Facebook, asking people to join him in sitting around the bus outside the facility at 411 W. Cataldo Ave. to prevent it from leaving.

Stuckart was the legal guardian of one of the immigrants detained that day, Joswar Rodriguez Torres, who was released seven months later after a judge found the U.S. Department of Homeland Security illegally detained him.

Six people originally charged as part of the protest, including Stuckart, who pleaded guilty in exchange for a lesser sentence. He will be able to withdraw his felony plea in about a year and instead plead guilty to a less serious misdemeanor charge if he abides by release conditions. Under the agreement, Stuckart likely will not face jail time.

"I just feel so awful for Bajun, Jac, Justice and their families. It's rough in democracy these days," Stuckart said in a brief phone call Thursday. "Everybody that showed up there showed up at their own volition. When I pled guilty, I took responsibility. I said, 'Sometimes you can do the right thing, and there are negative consequences.' "

Protesters that day eventually began linking arms around vans and in front of agents' cars. The event grew chaotic. ICE agents entered a crowd of people standing outside the facility's parking lot gate and began grabbing people by the necks and arms, pushing them to the ground. Protesters also slashed tires of vans meant to transport the detainees.

When the agents went back inside the facility and local police arrived to create space for the agents and immigrants to exit the building, smoke canisters were deployed and dozens were arrested for unlawful assembly in the protest.

A day later, the U.S. Justice Department sent out a mass email to all 93 U.S. attorneys ordering federal prosecutors to prioritize cases against protesters who defy federal immigration enforcement and to publicize those types of cases, a Reuters report shows.

"People in Spokane and people in Eastern Washington need to understand that we were guinea pigs. That they brought the swamp of Washington, D.C., into our area to stop American citizens from exercising our rights that are guaranteed," Bajun Mavalwalla Sr. said after his son was convicted. "It was the whole point of the Constitution, the right to protest, the right to dissent, the right to assemble, all of those things are now in question because of this case. My son has taken the brunt of the entire weight of the United States government onto their shoulders."

Acting U.S. Attorney for Eastern Washington Richard Barker resigned as prosecutors were considering the cases and posted on LinkedIn that he was grateful he "never had to sign an indictment or file a brief that I didn't believe in," and later told The Spokesman-Review in an interview he "was concerned about the Department's senior leadership in Washington, D.C., staying true to the values of what we hold dear: upholding the rule of law without fear or favor."

During the trial, the government was required to prove to the jury there was a plan or an agreement from the defendants to complete one of four elements - that they agreed to impede an agent in their duties using force, intimidation or threat, that the defendants agreed to injure an agent, that the defendants agreed to injure the agents' property or that the defendants agreed to injure the agents' property to hinder them in their duties.

The U.S. Attorney's Office of Eastern Washington did not respond to a request for comment Thursday evening.

Over the course of the trial, defense attorneys contended there was no prior agreement or plan to act a certain way or accomplish certain things during the protest. They also said that just because their clients may have said offensive things or behaved poorly in some instances doesn't mean they tried to impede officers using force, threat or intimidation.

Conspiracy also does not amount to people acting in similar ways, the jury instructions said.

Archer was heard on a voice recording discussing their plan to protest nonviolently and risk arrest by sitting in front of the bus and the parking lot gate.

Archer had written down names and contact information of nonviolent protesters in case they were injured or arrested.

Oreskovich said during the trial that even if Archer had a plan to protest, it was still nonviolent. For someone to be convicted of conspiracy against the ICE agents, it has to be done with threat, force or intimidation, and that was not Archer's intent, Oreskovich said.

After the trial, Oreskovich told The Spokesman-Review that juries don't always get it right.

"One of the problems of the statute is it required a use of force," he said. "And it's clear that Jac's intent was absolutely to the contrary. Jac intended this to be nonviolent and not forceful. And really simply resisted the actions by ICE to move the protesters out of the way.

"Mere resistance is not force."

Forral was shown parking their car in front of the white bus, tampering with its tire, milling around from place to place, telling people to block exits of the facility, occasionally yelling at law enforcement, and placing benches and scooters in front of the facility's parking lot gate. Their attorney Andrea George told the jury during closing arguments that even if those things happened, it didn't mean Forral was guilty of conspiracy. It just meant that they likely engaged in disorderly conduct and failed to disperse, she said.

Mavalwalla II was shown in video footage being pushed among the crowd by the gate, holding a sign, yelling at agents that the local police are not coming, and pulling his arm away from an officer who attempted to grab it from behind. He was also shown wearing gloves, briefly holding an umbrella and twirling around near a police skirmish line, a method where police stand side-by-side to direct crowds.

"My son fought in Afghanistan for this country, he held a top secret security clearance, has never been in trouble with the law, and these people call him an insurrectionist," Mavalwalla Sr. said. "That is unconscionable, and it's un-American. What we fought for, what my son is standing for, what Justice is standing for, what Jac is standing for - are the freedoms that separate this country from the dictatorships."

All defendants asked for a judgment of acquittal from the judge based on lack of evidence. U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pennell gave the parties a deadline of two weeks to prepare to argue the motion. She took it under advisement earlier in the trial, something that is considered by other attorneys to be somewhat rare.

Oreskovich is hopeful the motion will correct the jury's decision.

Devin Biviano, Archer's brother-in-law, called Thursday's verdict "justice delayed, not denied."

"It's only a matter of time before the correct outcome is determined through the legal system," Biviano said outside the courthouse. "I am as confident as ever that my loved ones and anybody else facing these charges will ultimately be found to have not violated any crime, let alone a federal conspiracy crime."

Reporters Emily White, Emry Dinman, Garrett Cabeza, Megan Howard and Julia Pentasuglio contributed to this story.

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