Mikki Hatfield doesn’t know what’s next, and they are upset.
Hatfield pleaded not guilty in July to federal felony accusations that they’d conspired to impede or assault law enforcement officers during a protest at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Spokane. But on December 3, they flipped that plea to guilty, agreeing to a deal federal prosecutors brokered with them and at least three other protesters.
The plea deal turns a potential felony sentence that could mean six years in federal prison and $250,000 in fines into three years of probation and a few thousand dollars in restitution costs. But Hatfield is alarmed by the political implications of prosecuting protesters.
“I’m feeling very dismayed generally,” Hatfield said in an interview after their plea change hearing.
Hatfield is one of the “Spokane 9,” protesters who are alleged, in part, to have responded to a Facebook post calling for people to block an ICE van from transporting two immigrants — Joswar Torres and Cesar Perez — who were legally in the US to an ICE detention center in Tacoma.
According to Hatfield’s plea deal, the US Attorney’s Office of Eastern Washington will drop the charge after they appear for a federal hearing in 18 months, replacing it with a misdemeanor charge of “depredation of government property.”
The consequences for that crime are far more lenient: three years of “supervised release,” or essentially probation, and nearly $11,000 in “restitution” to be paid collectively among defendants who accept the plea deal.
Between now and their final sentencing, they have to adhere to the basic provisions of release, which say a defendant can’t work for the federal government, use drugs, commit any crime or miss any legal proceeding they are called to.
Four of the nine — Ben Stuckart, who initiated the protest; Bobbi Silva; Colin Muncey; and Hatfield — have accepted the deal as of December 9.
Hatfield and Silva are also charged with assault of an officer. The government will drop that charge in exchange for their guilty plea.
The guilty plea for conspiracy carries heavy consequences: a potential six years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Hatfield is unhoused, which adds a level of precarity to their situation.
US District Court Judge Rebecca Pennell, who is overseeing Hatfield’s case alongside the eight others, said Hatfield should “be cautious” about how they behave before their hearing 18 months from now. Essentially, Pennell was telling Hatfield to behave as if they were a felon, which carries more restrictions on day-to-day life. Hatfield could not talk in any specific way about their case, but they used it as an example of a judicial double standard that punishes people who don’t have much power while letting the powerful off the hook.
“ I heavily disapprove of the way that the [legal system]l handles court cases for some companies versus how it handles cases for its citizens,” Hatfield said. “They get those non-prosecution agreements and there’s no fines, penalties, anything for killing people.”
After his hearing on Monday, Stuckart declined to comment. He is the only person of the nine who will be allowed to travel outside the US. He is also a straight white man, while most of the Spokane 9 are members of underrepresented communities.
In a statement, Stuckart accepted responsibility for the protest.
“When ICE took Cesar and Joswar (and put them in chains), I decided to try and stop them from taking my friends,” Stuckart wrote. “At the time, it was my hope that the government would do the right thing and release them from custody. I understood what I was up against, but I felt it was necessary to take a stand. I accept full responsibility for my conduct.”
The remaining five — Jac Archer, Co-Executive Director for Spokane Community Against Racism, artist and barista Erin Lang; T Ramirez, a barista; Justice Forral, a community activist; and Bajun Mavalwalla II, an Army veteran and the son of a congressional candidate — have not yet accepted the deal. The deadline for doing so was December 5 for most of the defendants, said Karen Lindholdt, the attorney representing Silva. The only exception, Lindholdt said, is Forral, whose deadline was December 8.
Only four of the Spokane 9 were among the 31 people originally arrested by city and county law enforcement — which fired smoke bombs and “less-than-lethal” projectiles at the demonstrators — at the June 11 protest.
Bajun Mavalwalla I, the father of Mavalwalla II and also an Army veteran, heavily criticized the prosecution and said his son was right to fight the charges.
“They want to frighten people so they are afraid to use their First Amendment rights,” said Mavalwalla, Mavalwalla II’s father, who was prominently quoted in a long story about his son’s case in The Guardian.
He also asserted that the prosecution of the nine people was bigoted. Each of the five who didn’t take the deal is a member of an underrepresented community
“They cherry picked minorities,” Mavalwalla said. “This is an area that is 90% white, and four of the nine that the federal government [charged] was an African-American, a Latino, a Native American and my son with a funny-sounding name. My son was not arrested on the day of. They were looking for people that they thought they could secure indictments against and get a bigoted jury to find them guilty.”
Lisa Cartier Giroux, the US attorney leading the case against the nine protesters, declined to comment, referring RANGE to the media line at the US Attorney’s Office of Eastern Washington. As of press time, no one from that office has responded to requests for comment.
Deciding whether or not to accept the deal was a tough calculus, Lindholdt said, one that weighed free speech against potential years of incarceration and hundreds of thousands in fines.
“Every defendant in every case has to look at the facts, look at the evidence,” Lindholdt said. They “probably concluded that the government could prove them guilty. … At what point do you become a martyr? A federal felony, 10 years from now, 15 years from now, they might regret it.”
‘Vulcan mind meld’
So what had the alleged conspiracy been? Cartier-Giroux says in documents that they responded to Stuckart’s social media posts asking for community members to help him block ICE agents from deporting Torres and Perez.
Mavalwalla, who emphasized he led intelligence work in the US Army and that his son had a top secret security clearance in the Army, said the conspiracy charges — which simply allege the defendant responded to a social media post calling to block the deportations — are frivolous.
“Do they think that my son does the Vulcan mind meld or has ESP?” he said. “It was sloppy intelligence work.”
For Hatfield and Silva, what had the alleged assault been? Hatfield is accused of throwing a smoke canister fired by local law enforcement into the scrum of protesters back at the officers, keeping their fellow demonstrators safe. Silva is accused of hitting a law enforcement officer in the head.
Both have accepted the plea agreement brokered by the government.
Most of the people who are being prosecuted for their actions during the June 11 protest did not respond to requests for comment, and neither did their attorneys. But Hatfield, who spoke to RANGE after taking the plea deal, said they were still in a precarious position: they said they had recently been fired from their job at a local grocery store for requesting protection against industrial noise.
They are also in the process of moving from Idaho — where the federal court required them to live following their first hearing — back to Spokane.
“It’s gonna be far better than living in Boise because every time I come back up here, even for short periods of time, it feels like a reset for my mental and physical health,” Hatfield said.
