CHICAGO — Federal prosecutors on Thursday dismissed felony charges against an Oak Park man with intellectual disabilities accused of assaulting federal officers during a recent protest outside the Broadview immigration holding facility.
Paul Ivery, 26, who supporters have described as neurodivergent, was released on bond last month following an emotional hearing packed with his friends and loved ones.
Oak Park Mayor Vicki Scaman called Ivery “a valued member of our community” who is “loved and respected by everyone who knows him,” according to a letter by Scaman read by the judge at the hearing.
An attorney for Ivery declined to comment on the dropped charges.
Ivery was one of five people charged in U.S. District Court following late September protests at the west suburban Broadview facility, which has been the scene of turbulent demonstrations in recent weeks amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, with federal agents repeatedly deploying tear gas, pepper balls and other non lethal force at protesters.
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But charges against four of those five individuals have since been dismissed, according to court records.
Shortly after charges against Ivery were dropped, Christopher Wells, a lawyer with the Illinois attorney general’s office, incorporated the dismissal into his arguments in a Thursday hearing over the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard in Illinois to quell immigration protests.
The Illinois attorney general’s office is seeking an emergency restraining order to bar the National Guard deployment, which began Thursday. During a hearing on the matter, Wells said that the government’s own evidence of dangerous protesters was lacking, citing Ivery’s dismissed charges.
“I’ve learned that as we’ve been sitting here, yet another one of his indictments that they referenced is out the window. Done,” Wells said. “Mr. Paul Ivery.”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered prosecutors to charge anyone suspected of interfering with or threatening federal officers “with the highest provable offense available under the law.”
Initially, the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago tried to have Ivery detained without bond, but after learning of his cognitive disability instead asked that he be placed in home detention and forbidden from having contact with minors.
But U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel Fuentes declined most of the restrictions sought by prosecutors, saying that Ivery needed to keep his job working in the cafeteria at Oak Park and River Forest High School. The judge also ruled that the charges had nothing to do with his work around children.
During a protest in late September, Ivery was accused of clashing with officers outside the Broadview facility, getting within 6 inches of a federal officer’s face and telling him, “I’ll (expletive) kill you right now,” before grabbing the agent’s helmet and pulling his head down, according to a criminal complaint.
Ivery’s court-appointed attorney, Jonathan Brooks, said during the bond hearing that Ivery had no criminal record and was exercising his First Amendment rights the night of the protest.
“I do believe it’s important in this time that people express those rights,” Brooks added.
The Oak Park mayor’s letter also described Ivery as an ardent supporter of law enforcement, adding that Oak Park police “know him as the kid who stops and salutes as they pass him by on the street.”
