Feds in Chicago get first guilty plea in a Midway Blitz case — but not for assaulting immigration agents
Federal prosecutors in Chicago secured their first guilty plea tied to Operation Midway Blitz on Wednesday, though not for the assault charge they’d originally leveled against Anthony Gonzalez Alvarez.
Instead, he pleaded guilty to concealing information about a crime, admitting he falsely reported his Ford F-250 had been stolen to the Chicago Police Department after he drove it into the rear of a vehicle driven by immigration officers.
The charge, officially known as “misprision of a felony,” is apparently rare enough that it prompted an in-court discussion of how to pronounce “misprision.”
“Never heard of it,” U.S. District Judge LaShonda Hunt told the lawyers.
Alvarez, 27, is expected to pay $1,362 in restitution but avoid prison under the terms of a deal he struck with prosecutors. However, Hunt first must decide whether to accept or reject the agreement. She’s deferred for now, and she set sentencing for July 22.
Alvarez is among 32 known defendants charged with nonimmigration crimes tied to Midway Blitz, the deportation campaign that rocked the Chicago area last year. Twenty of the 32 have been cleared, and three others are on track to have their cases dismissed.
Four of the remaining eight are members of the group originally known as the “Broadview Six” and face trial May 26. Another man, Hector Gomez, is set to plead guilty April 27 after being hit with weapons charges tied to Midway Blitz.
The Trump administration used claims of “harrowing” violence toward federal agents to justify a push to deploy National Guard troops into Chicago last fall. They were blocked initially by U.S. District Judge April Perry, and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court.
Even with Alvarez’s guilty plea, no one in Chicago has been convicted in federal court of an act of violence toward agents during Midway Blitz.
Still, Alvarez admitted that around 10:30 a.m. on Oct. 3, he followed a U.S. Customs and Border Protection vehicle on the South Side. As it turned right from West 61st Street onto South Kedzie Avenue, he drove into the rear passenger side of the feds’ vehicle.
Later that day, Alvarez told CPD his truck had been stolen, he admitted.
Alvarez pleaded guilty despite questions about the case previously raised by his defense attorney, Ricardo Meza. The attorney told Hunt in January that “the van that was allegedly hit has been repaired.”
“It’s not even in the condition that it was in when it was allegedly hit by my client, so we’re not able to inspect it,” Meza told Hunt on Jan. 29. “But despite that, judge, we also want to inspect it because we want to retrieve what’s called the event data recorder.”
Meza also said he’d be seeking FBI agents' notes because “there’s a lot of confusion about what happened, when it happened, and how many times a vehicle was hit.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Stern told the judge Meza had the power to subpoena the vehicle himself, from the rental car company that was in possession of the vehicle.
“It is with Enterprise,” she said during the January hearing.
Similar issues arose in the case of Marimar Martinez, the woman shot by a Border Patrol agent Oct. 4. Shortly after she was accused of driving into that agent’s vehicle, her defense attorney revealed that the agent had taken his vehicle to Maine before the attorney could inspect it.
Charges were dropped against Martinez in November.