CHICAGO — A federal judge on Thursday dismissed the felony conspiracy count against the remaining defendants in the “Broadview Six” case, further winnowing a politically charged prosecution that is now down to misdemeanor counts of impeding an immigration agent.

“Congratulations, you all are no longer charged with felonies,” U.S. District Judge April Perry told the four defendants in granting a motion from prosecutors to dismiss the lone conspiracy charge in the indictment.

The decision comes days after defense attorneys accused the U.S. attorney’s office of reneging on a promise to dismiss the charge, deciding instead to wait until after trial — which prosecutors said was the “usual” protocol for the office.

Attorney Christopher Parente, who represents Oak Park Trustee Brian Straw, took it a step further, suggesting the delay in dismissing the charge was part of a “shell game” to avoid having to turn over unredacted grand jury transcripts to the judge.

In a motion earlier this week, Parente said that based on what has been turned over so far, it seemed likely the U.S. attorney’s office either misinstructed the grand jury on the law, had “improper or prejudicial” interactions with the panel, or failed to instruct the grand jury at all. Any of those scenarios, he said, would give the Department of Justice “yet another public black eye.”

“In these circumstances, there is virtually no interest in maintaining secrecy in how the government instructed a now dismissed grand jury on the law for an indictment it has already told the Court it would dismiss, but has not actually done so,” Parente wrote.

In response, prosecutors blasted Parente for “histrionically” speculating about perceived misconduct in what was the normal practice in Chicago’s federal court. “There was nothing remotely unusual, let alone nefarious, about that state of affairs,” prosecutors said in their motion Wednesday.

“In order to alleviate defendants’ stated concerns, and avoid what would surely be further unnecessary and time-consuming litigation, not to mention a waste of this court’s resources, the government hereby formally moves to dismiss Count One of the original indictment with prejudice,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys William Hogan, Matthew Skiba, and Andres Almendarez wrote.

After Perry granted the motion to dismiss in court Thursday, Parente renewed his argument that prosecutors should still be required to give her the unredacted grand jury transcripts so everyone can be assured the process wasn’t “tainted.”

Perry said she had already “seen about 99% of the transcripts,” with the exception of about 20 or 30 “lines in the middle of things that were redacted.”

“I would argue it only takes two lines” to show the process was not properly handled,” Parente said.

The judge said she planned to take up the issue again at the next hearing on May 18.

If the trial goes forward as scheduled on May 26, it would be an exceedingly rare example of federal misdemeanor charges going to trial at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. The last such high-profile case was nearly a decade ago, when former U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds was convicted in a bench trial of four misdemeanor tax evasion counts.

The Broadview Six case has been beset by controversy from the moment the indictment was brought last October as the defense has alleged the case was brought amid pressure from the administration of President Donald Trump and was nothing more than an attempt to silence protesters of the president’s draconian immigration policies.

In addition to Straw, the remaining defendants in the case are former congressional candidate Katherine “Kat” Abughazaleh; Andre Martin, originally of Providence, Rhode Island, who was Abughazaleh’s deputy campaign manager; and 45th Ward Democratic Committeeman Michael Rabbitt.

Earlier this year, Perry granted a request from the U.S. attorney’s office to dismiss charges against Catherine Sharp, a onetime candidate for the Cook County Board, and Joselyn Walsh, a part-time garden store worker and singer.

Prosecutors alleged the defendants were part of a group that surrounded an ICE vehicle outside the Broadview facility during a Sept. 26 protest and “banged aggressively” on the vehicle’s side and back windows, hood and doors before they “crowded together in the front and side of the Government Vehicle and pushed against the vehicle to hinder and impede its movement.”

They further alleged that the protesters scratched the vehicle’s body, broke a side mirror and a rear windshield wiper and etched the word “PIG” into the paint — though no one listed in the indictment is accused of specifically causing that damage.

The conspiracy count had carried a maximum sentence of six years in federal prison. The remaining misdemeanor counts of impeding a federal officer are each punishable by up to one year behind bars.

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