{"id":414841,"date":"2026-07-28T05:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T05:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/414841\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T05:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T05:52:12","slug":"federal-charges-against-california-labor-leader-david-huerta-dropped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/414841\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal charges against California labor leader David Huerta dropped"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Federal prosecutors are dropping charges against California labor leader David Huerta, who was arrested while protesting against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/losangeles\/news\/los-angeles-demand-release-union-leader\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">immigration raids last year.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Huerta has agreed to resolve his case through a diversion agreement, admitting to the charged facts and agreeing to comply with conditions,&#8221; the U.S. Attorney&#8217;s Office said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said Huerta agreed not to interfere in federal enforcement operations. Essayli added that his office will refile charges if he breaks the agreement.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The charge against me was baseless, meant to intimidate anyone who dares to speak out, organize or demand justice,&#8221; Huerta said after the judge dropped the charges.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Huerta, the president of the Service Employees International Union California, was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/david-huerta-seiu-charged-los-angeles-ice-protest-trump\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">arrested<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"\" target=\"_blank\"\/>on June 6 and charged with felony conspiracy, although the charge was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/david-huerta-california-labor-felony-charge-immigration-protest-reduced\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">later reduced<\/a>\u00a0to a misdemeanor for obstruction, resistance, or opposition of a federal officer.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My actions, however infuriating to the federal agents, were protected by the First Amendment of our Constitution,&#8221; Huerta said. &#8220;For that, I was tackled, pepper-sprayed, and detained.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Attorney&#8217;s Office denies claims that prosecutors recklessly filed charges. They added that they do not arrest people for peacefully protesting.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Huerta said his case was dropped because it was bogus.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our motions exposed a case that never should have been brought because it violated my constitutional rights,&#8221; Huerta said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Court documents showed that Huerta and prosecutors signed off on a set of facts pertaining to the incident. It states that before Huerta&#8217;s arrest, he positioned himself in a driveway where the operation was unfolding, encouraged others to do the same and that this resulted in an agent being unable to enter a gate.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal prosecutors are dropping charges against California labor leader David Huerta, who was arrested while protesting against immigration&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-414841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414841","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=414841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}