pleaded guilty<\/a> to the misdemeanor count earlier this year.<\/p>\nProsecutors had also charged the Guatemalan man and another protester with assault but dismissed both cases.<\/p>\n
Another protester arrested at the scene remains charged, and her case is pending, with a hearing scheduled for next week.<\/p>\n
At her sentencing hearing on Thursday in federal court, Wong said the agent grabbed and pushed her just before she pulled his mask off.<\/p>\n
\u201cI acted in confusion, not malice,\u201d said Wong, who said she was \u201cprepared to take responsibility for that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her plea agreement states that Wong \u201cstruck\u201d the agent in the face, though Wong\u2019s attorney, Hector Tomayo, called any physical contact between Wong and the agent \u201cminimal\u201d and described prosecutors\u2019 accounts of the events as \u201cexaggerated.\u201d<\/p>\n
The attorney also took issue with statements made by the agent, Matt Hogan, during the hearing.<\/p>\n
Hogan did not appear in person, but delivered a statement remotely, in which he described the protesters as a \u201cgroup of privileged, liberal extremists cosplaying as social justice warriors\u201d and said \u201cthe only reason (agents) choose to wear masks is to protect their children and families from the actions of deranged lunatics like Ms. Wong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tomayo argued those comments showed a \u201cpolitical motive\u201d behind Hogan\u2019s account of the events and were \u201cindicative of his prejudice and his lack of objectivity as to what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prosecutors had sought a one-year prison sentence, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Evangeline Athena Dech describing the incident as a \u201cdeliberate assault\u201d on the agent that \u201ccrossed the clear and unmistakable line between expression and criminal conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n
The prosecutor also alleged Wong had engaged in \u201cassaultive conduct\u201d while on pre-trial release.<\/p>\n
Among the incidents cited by the prosecutor was one referenced in Wong\u2019s plea agreement, which states that she lent her vehicle to someone else last December for the purpose of following an HSI officer. Another incident was a sit-in protest at San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria\u2019s office earlier this year, which ended with the arrests of Wong and five others.<\/p>\n
U.S. Magistrate Judge Allison Goddard imposed a sentence just above the 30 days of home confinement sought by Wong\u2019s attorney.<\/p>\n
The judge said there wasn\u2019t an \u201cexcuse for making any contact with an officer,\u201d but credited Wong for her work in activism.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks to me like you\u2019ve spent your life trying to help people who have been marginalized or unserved by the institutions in our society, and I definitely appreciate that,\u201d Goddard said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A San Diego activist who pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor assault count for pulling an HSI agent\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,1312,138,14,181,10923,23,100,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-206612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-courts","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-immigration","tag-latest-headlines","tag-linda-vista","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}