Prosecutors from U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office informed a magistrate judge of the no true bill on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON — For a second time this week, a federal grand jury declined to indict a defendant accused of threatening to kill President Donald Trump.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office informed a magistrate judge Tuesday afternoon that a grand jury had refused charges against Edward Alexander Dana. Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey denied a request from prosecutors not to disclose that information to Dana’s attorney.
Dana, who described himself to police as a “person with disabilities,” was charged last month with threatening to kill Trump while he was being arrested on suspicion of damaging an exterior light at a restaurant in Northwest D.C. According to charging documents, Dana told police he was intoxicated at the time and claimed to be a descendant of the Huguenots – a group of French Protestants who mounted a series of rebellions against the crown in the 17th Century.
Dana’s case marks at least the seventh time since Trump’s federal surge began in D.C. that a grand jury has declined to support charges field by Pirro’s office. It’s also the second time prosecutors have failed to secure charges against a defendant accused of threatening Trump. Earlier Tuesday, WUSA9 reported a grand jury had refused to indict another defendant, Nathalie Rose Jones, of New York, for allegedly making threats against Trump online.
Last month, prosecutors were rejected three times in their efforts to indict a woman, Sidney Reid, for allegedly assaulting an FBI agent during an ICE arrest. A day later, WUSA9 reported a grand jury had declined to indict Sean Dunn, a former Justice Department employee accused of throwing a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer.
Prosecutors have since charged both with lesser, misdemeanor versions of the offense, although their failure to win an indictment may foreworn eventual problems if the case goes to trial. Harvey, who also handed Reid’s preliminary hearing, said the failure to indict suggested the “evidence is wanting.”
Grand juries nearly always return indictments in federal cases because they are tasked with deciding only whether there is a reasonable basis to support charging a crime, a much lower burden than in criminal trials, and because they typically made their decisions after hearing evidence only from the government. Dana’s attorney, assistant federal public defender Elizabeth Mullin, said in her more than 20-year career as a defense attorney she had never seen a similar spree of refusals to indict.
“This is the result of them taking weak cases and trying to shoehorn them into federal district court,” Mullin said.
In other cases where juries have declined to indict, prosecutors have recharged defendants under lesser, misdemeanor versions of their alleged crimes. But in Dana’s case it was unclear that would be an option. Mullin said there is no misdemeanor analogue to threatening to kill the president. Prosecutors also acknowledged the failure to indict could mean the end of the case, but asked a magistrate judge to maintain the status quo until a scheduled preliminary hearing on Thursday.
Pirro has so far defended her office’s decision to bring felony cases that grand jurors ultimately wouldn’t support. Last week, when a grand jury declined to indict a man for throwing a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer, Pirro claimed during a Fox News interview that D.C. residents are “so used to crime.” On Tuesday, she told WUSA9 in a statement that a grand jury’s similar refusal to indict Jones, the New York woman accused of threatening Trump, was the “essence of a politicized jury.”
Under federal law, an indictment is required within 30 days of arrest for any felony charge prosecutors want to bring.
After prosecutors disclosed the grand jury’s decision not to indict Dana on Tuesday, Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya ordered a previously court-mandated GPS monitor removed. He was ordered to continue complying with restrictions on alcohol use until his preliminary hearing on Thursday.