Federal prosecutors have decreased fees in opposition to a person who threw a sandwich at a federal officer in Washington, after a grand jury refused to indict him on a felony assault depend.Sean Charles Dunn, 37, a former justice division paralegal, went viral earlier this month after being filmed hurling a footlong submarine sandwich at a Customs and Border Safety officer close to 14th and U streets. The video confirmed him shouting “fascists” and telling officers, “I don’t need you in my metropolis!” earlier than tossing the sandwich at one in every of them.Prosecutors initially pursued felony assault, which carries as much as eight years in jail. Nonetheless, grand jurors declined to return an indictment this week, prompting the US legal professional’s workplace to refile the case as a misdemeanour cost of straightforward assault, punishable by as much as one yr behind bars, reported The New York Occasions.The failure to indict was hanging given the near-automatic nature of the grand jury course of. A well known authorized adage says prosecutors might “indict a ham sandwich.” But, in latest weeks, Washington jurors have rejected a number of felony instances linked to US President Donald Trump’s deployment of federal brokers and Nationwide Guard troops within the capital.In keeping with information company AP, the Trump administration had spotlighted Dunn’s arrest, releasing a industrially produced video of armed officers arriving at his flat. Washington’s prime prosecutor, Jeanine Pirro, additionally promoted the felony cost in a social media clip, quipping: “So there, stick your subway sandwich someplace else.”Dunn, swiftly dismissed from his justice division position by legal professional common Pam Bondi, has since been labelled “Sandwich Man” by sections of the media and embraced by supporters as an emblem of pushback in opposition to Trump’s federal policing surge.As per AP, prosecutors confronted one other setback earlier this week when three separate grand juries refused to indict a lady accused of assaulting an FBI agent throughout an immigration protest. Her case, too, was downgraded to a misdemeanour.Judges have additionally expressed scepticism about a few of these prosecutions. Justice of the Peace Decide Zia M. Faruqui, in a separate case involving lawyer Paul Bryant, criticised prosecutors for detaining him, saying their request had “near zero” likelihood of success.
