Chicago U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros has been ordered to testify before a federal judge later this month as she weighs whether to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate alleged misconduct by federal prosecutors in the so-called "Broadview Six" case.
In an order issued on Monday, U.S. District Judge April Perry said she found it "hard to credit" Boutros' claims that he was not aware of potential misconduct by prosecutors during grand jury proceedings, given that the grand jury in the Broadview Six case initially refused to indict the defendants, a rarity for federal prosecutors.
"Grand jury 'no bills' are exceedingly rare. To anyone who has been a federal prosecutor, a no bill would be an immediate red flag that something has gone very wrong in the grand jury. Because of this, USA Boutros himself had to approve the re-presentment of the case to the grand jury," Perry wrote. "The idea that USA Boutros would have made such a significant decision without reviewing the best evidence available to him about what went wrong in the grand jury is nearly unfathomable."
Perry ordered Boutros and three federal prosecutors in his office to appear in her courtroom on Nov. 16 to testify under oath about their handling of the case.
"Court concludes that there is more than an adequate factual basis for the Court to pursue an inquiry as to whether willful false statements were made to the Court," Perry wrote.
Boutros and the others will be expected to testify about the grand jury transcripts in the case, any redactions made to those transcripts, and the accuracy of statements Boutros and the prosecutors in his office have made in her courtroom about the case.
The order comes on the same day that Douglas DePodesta, the former head of the Chicago FBI office, filed a lawsuit against Boutros, FBI Director Kash Patel, and U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, accusing them of forcing him to resign and making him a scapegoat for failures in Boutros' office.
DePodesta's suit claims Boutros urged him to open FBI investigations into "individuals with political views or affiliations in opposition to the Trump administration."
His lawsuit describes a climate of pressure to specifically charge individuals involved in what's become known as the Broadview Six case — a group of protesters arrested outside an ICE detention facility in west-suburban Broadview in 2025.
All federal charges were eventually dismissed against the six this past May, after Perry demanded grand jury transcripts from the case, which revealed that Boutros' team improperly influenced grand jurors and excluded dissenting votes to secure charges.
At the hearing when Boutros announced his office's decision to drop the charges in the Broadview Six case, he cited improper handling of the grand jury proceedings by the lead prosecutor in the case.
Following a closed-door meeting over redacted grand jury transcripts in the case, Boutros told Perry he was unaware soon before that hearing of the alleged misconduct, including a prosecutor meeting with a grand juror outside proceedings and other jurors who disagreed with the case being dismissed and prevented from participating. Boutros did not dispute the allegations, saying the conduct was upsetting and the reason the case was being dismissed.
"No one acted with the intent to mislead your honor, and I think that they were following your order to give the law," Boutros said.
During a closed-door hearing on the redacted grand jury transcripts, Perry told federal prosecutors she was "incredibly shocked by the redactions that were made," according to a transcript of the hearing that was made public Thursday evening.
"I have read hundreds, if not thousands, of grand jury transcripts involving prosecutors who are the most junior of prosecutors to several U.S. Attorneys who appeared before the grand jury. I have never seen the types of prosecutorial behavior before a grand jury that I saw in those transcripts."
After the charges were dropped in the case, the Broadview Six requested a special prosecutor be assigned to investigate the alleged misconduct by Boutros' office and prosecute them for criminal contempt if warranted.
Perry has yet to rule on that request, and last month she requested more evidence from Boutros' office, including "all communications" federal prosecutors had with anyone outside the U.S. Attorney's office regarding the Broadview Six case from the time of their arrest in September 2025 until this past March, when prosecutors dropped charges against two of the six defendants.
However, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward filed a response to Perry's request on Friday, saying the federal government "has not agreed to provide any information," and asking her to justify any investigation she might conduct.
