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Stephen Miller railed against a California jury that acquitted a man for towing an ICE vehicle during an immigration enforcement operation.
On Friday, a federal jury found Los Angeles tow truck driver Bobby Nuñez not guilty on the charge of theft of government property, following a four-day trial.
Nuñez, 33, was arrested in September after he was accused of interfering with the detainment of TikTok influencer Tatiana Mafla-Martinez while she live-streamed her own arrest. A video of the incident shows a government SUV being towed away from agents who had Mafla-Martinez pinned to the ground.
Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, who has been instrumental in shaping the Trump administration’s immigration policy, took to social media to express his dissatisfaction with the outcome.
“Another example of blatant jury nullification in a blue city,” Miller wrote on X on Sunday. “The justice system depends on a jury of peers with a shared system of interests and values. Mass migration tribalizes the entire legal system.”
Bill Essayli, the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, also acknowledged the decision on Friday.
“A jury found Mr. Nuñez not guilty,” Essayli said, according to NBC News. “He was free on bond prior to the trial. We have no further comment.”
Previously, Essayli stated that he was confident Nuñez would face a prison sentence.
“Apparently he thought it would be funny to interfere with our immigration enforcement operations,” he wrote on X in September. “Now he can laugh behind bars while he faces justice. Nunez is looking at up to 10 years in federal prison if convicted.”
Nunez’s attorneys, meanwhile, said they were happy that the jury found their client not guilty.
“We thank the jurors for their service as an essential backstop against prosecutorial overreach in our constitutional system,” they told The Los Angeles Times.
During the multi-day trial, Nunez’s defense team argued that his actions barely interfered with the ICE arrest, noting that he had only towed the vehicle a block away and that it was retrieved within minutes.
Mafla-Martinez was detained on allegations of living in the U.S. illegally. According to the Times, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said she had previously been convicted of driving under the influence and entered the U.S. unlawfully in 2022.
The jury’s decision marks the latest courtroom setback for the Trump administration, which has vowed to prosecute individuals who get in the way of immigration enforcement operations.
A recent investigation by the Associated Press revealed that dozens of cases brought against people accused of disrupting ICE activity have fallen apart.
“Of the 100 people initially charged with felony assaults on federal agents, 55 saw their charges reduced to misdemeanors, or dismissed outright,” the AP reported on Thursday. “At least 23 pleaded guilty, most of them to reduced charges in deals with prosecutors that resulted in little or no jail time.”
