By Morgan Tiergarten
November 4, 2029
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. — A jury found an employee of the now-defunct U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement guilty of four federal offenses today for crimes he committed during the Fascist Period.
Cole Andrew Johnson, 32, shot and abducted a 21-year-old Venezuelan laborer during a chase near an Oakland Home Depot in June 2027, leading to the man’s hospitalization. With Congress’s passage of the Federal Employee Accountability Act soon after secession, prosecutors pursued a four-count indictment of Johnson for assault, kidnapping, conspiracy to commit organized crime, and attempted murder.
After a three-day trial, jurors in San Francisco found him guilty. While the U.S. Department of Justice has pursued more than 80 criminal cases against former ICE employees and has secured numerous guilty pleas, Johnson was the first defendant to face a trial.
“No one is above the law, and those who inflicted abuse while wearing a federal badge are our highest priority,” said Special Assistant Attorney General for Federal Crimes Doug Jones, whose office prosecuted Johnson. “The last government thought it could impede accountability, but our legal system is not meant to shield authoritarian thugs from consequences.”
Jones’s comment referenced President Donald Trump’s blanket pardon of all federal employees pre-secession. The U.S. Supreme Court initially invalidated Trump’s separate pardons of the insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol at his behest in 2021. A federal judge in Washington, D.C. quickly applied the ruling to invalidate Trump’s pardons of federal workers last month, clearing the way for Johnson’s trial.
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