U.S. District Judge April Perry ordered U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros and three assistant prosecutors to appear and testify under oath Nov. 16 in the Broadview 6 case, which stems from the federal prosecution of Oak Park Village Trustee Brian Straw and five others.
Perry issued the seven-page order Monday, Nov. 2, after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) declined to voluntarily produce evidence she had requested for her inquiry into alleged prosecutorial misconduct, as first reported by Oak Park's Wednesday Journal.
The judge concluded there is "more than an adequate factual basis for the court to pursue an inquiry as to whether willful false statements were made to the court," according to the Wednesday Journal.
The three assistant U.S. attorneys ordered to testify alongside Boutros are William Hogan, Matthew Skiba and Andres Almendarez, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Perry added a footnote defining her own word choice: "The court uses 'must' in its legal sense, which is to say it is mandatory."
As we reported Nov. 1, the DOJ's third-highest-ranking official, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, had intervened Oct. 30 and filed a brief declaring the government "has not agreed to cooperate" with Perry's investigation. Woodward argued the judge's earlier order used words like "ask" and "request" and therefore created no obligation to produce information.
Perry called that "professed confusion," according to the Tribune. She wrote that "the factual basis for the Court's inquiry is not a mystery to anyone who has had any involvement with this case or even conducted a cursory review of the docket."
What the testimony will cover
Perry said the Nov. 16 testimony will address grand jury transcripts and redactions in the case, the accuracy of statements prosecutors made to the court about outside communications, Boutros's own statements to the court on May 21, and what Perry described as prosecutors' "repeated failures to correct the court's stated misconceptions," according to the Wednesday Journal.
Perry also said she will accept testimony from any current or former employee of the U.S. Attorney's Office or federal law enforcement agency with firsthand knowledge of the events, the Wednesday Journal reported.
Trust 'broken'
Perry, who has previously told prosecutors that the trust she normally places in them "has been broken," wrote that she took them at their word at an Oct. 1 hearing that they were "interested in regaining the court's trust after (their) acknowledged missteps," the Wednesday Journal reported.
"Trust is best rebuilt through cooperation, not gamesmanship," Perry concluded in her order.
The case centers on six people charged with conspiracy after a September 2025 protest at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Broadview. Straw, an Oak Park village trustee, was among those charged. The case collapsed in May amid allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.
On the same day as Perry's order, former Chicago FBI chief Douglas DePodesta filed a lawsuit against Boutros and top DOJ officials, alleging Boutros scapegoated him for the failed prosecution, WBEZ reported. DePodesta alleged in the suit that Boutros met with Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel and others at Chicago FBI headquarters on Oct. 7, 2025, two days before prosecutors first took the case to a grand jury, according to the Tribune.
Perry referenced DePodesta's lawsuit in her order, noting the U.S. Attorney's Office has been "cagey" about its communications with officials in Washington, the Tribune reported. A spokesperson for Boutros's office declined to comment on the DePodesta lawsuit, according to WTTW. No public response from Boutros's office to Perry's order appeared in available reports.
A hearing on pending motions is scheduled for Nov. 5 at 10:30 a.m. in Perry's courtroom.
