A felony conviction secured by federal prosecutors stemming from a traffic altercation during Operation Midway Blitz has now been reduced to a misdemeanor after renewed scrutiny by the U.S. attorney’s office’s handling of grand jury matters called his plea deal into question.
Anthony Gonzalez Alvarez, 27, of Lyons, was originally indicted in October on the same day — and by the same federal grand jury — involved in the now-dismissed “Broadview Six” case. In fact, the indictment was the first to be secured after U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros made an unusual appearance before the panel to talk about their duty to be fair, including in immigration cases.
Alvarez ultimately pleaded guilty in April to a separate felony charge stemming from a traffic altercation with Border Patrol agents in Brighton Park. But weeks later, as revelations of grand jury misconduct in the Broadview case continued to cause blowback in other cases, prosecutors found there was a technical problem with the “misprision” charge to which he’d plead.
In his original plea, Alvarez admitted he called Chicago police and falsely reported his truck had been stolen the morning of the incident. But for a misprision of a felony charge to be valid, the person accused cannot be trying to cover up his own crime — only someone else’s.
On Thursday, Alvarez officially withdrew his plea to that felony charge and pleaded guilty instead to a misdemeanor count of interfering with a federal agent. In his plea deal, prosecutors said they will recommend a sentence of 0 to 6 months probation for Alvarez, meaning not only will he likely avoid any jail time, he might be sent home with no court supervision whatsoever.
According to Alvarez’s plea agreement, three U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents were part of a patrol in Brighton Park at about 10:30 a.m. on Oct. 3 when Alvarez, driving a black Ford F-250 pickup truck, joined a caravan that had been following agents’ vehicles.
As the caravan headed down 61st Street, the agent driving the CBP vehicle attempted to evade them by swerving into oncoming lanes of traffic, with Alvarez following closely behind, the plea agreement stated. After turning south on Kedzie Avenue, Alvarez “continued to drive recklessly and collided his truck into the rear passenger side” of the agents’ vehicle, causing about $1,300 in damage, according to the plea agreement.
That language was altered Thursday after Alvarez disputed in court that he intentionally rammed the agents’ car, saying he had to brake hard to avoid striking a car ahead of him and that these actions caused the impact, according to his attorney, Ricardo Meza
U.S. District Judge LaShonda Hunt set sentencing for Nov. 19.
Alvarez is one of only two people to be convicted so far out of nearly three dozen to face federal charges involving resistance to Operation Midway Blitz, the Trump administration’s two-month deportation campaign last fall that sparked protests across the region and near-daily clashes between residents and immigration agents.
As of Friday, 24 of the defendants had been cleared, either through a grand jury refusing to indict, the dismissal of charges by prosecutors, or, in the one case that went to trial, a not guilty verdict by a jury. The U.S. attorney’s office has entered into deferred prosecution agreements with five others that put them on track to end without a criminal conviction.
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Charges are pending against two others.