Sandwich-Chucking Case Goes to the Jury

A jury began deliberating Wednesday in the Justice Department's assault case against a man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent, turning him into a symbol of resistance to President Trump's law-enforcement surge in the nation's capital. Jurors deliberated for roughly two hours at Sean Charles Dunn's federal trial before they adjourned for the day, the AP reports. They're due back Thursday.

• Prosecutors told jurors that Dunn broke the law when he threw his submarine sandwich at a US Customs and Border Protection agent on the night of Aug. 10. One of Dunn's lawyers urged the jury to acquit Dunn, a former Justice Department employee, of a misdemeanor assault charge after a two-day trial. Defense attorney Sabrina Shroff questioned why the case was brought in the first place. "A footlong from Subway could not and certainly did not inflict any bodily harm," Shroff said during the trial's closing arguments. "Throwing a sandwich is not a forcible offense."

• Prosecutors from US Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office said Dunn knew he didn't have a right to throw the sandwich at the agent. "This is not a case about someone with strong opinions," Assistant US Attorney Michael DiLorenzo said. "It's about an individual who crossed the line."
• Dunn didn't testify at his trial. But the jury heard him explain why he confronted a group of CBP agents on the same weekend that Trump announced his deployment of hundreds of National Guard troops and federal agents to assist with police patrols in Washington, DC. After his arrest, a law-enforcement officer's body camera captured him saying: "I did it. I threw a sandwich. I did it to draw them away from where they were. I succeeded." A grand jury refused to indict Dunn on a felony assault count. After the rare rebuke from the grand jury, Pirro's office charged Dunn instead with a misdemeanor.

• When Dunn approached a group of CBP agents who were in front of a club hosting a "Latin Night," he called them "fascists" and "racists" and chanted "shame" toward them. After he threw the sandwich, he ran away but was apprehended.
• CBP Agent Gregory Lairmore testified on Tuesday that the sandwich "exploded" when it struck his chest hard enough that he could feel it through his ballistic vest. "You could smell the onions and the mustard," he recalled.
• Shroff, however, displayed a photo of the sandwich on the ground, almost entirely still in its wrapper, the Washington Post reports. "In fact that sandwich hasn't exploded at all," she said. Lairmore insisted that he had "mustard and condiments on my uniform, and an onion hanging from my radio antenna that night."
• Lairmore's colleagues jokingly gave him gifts making light of the incident, including a sandwich-shaped plush toy and a patch that said "felony footlong." Lairmore acknowledged that he kept the gifts, placing the patch on his lunchbox. "If someone assaulted you, someone offended you, would you keep mementos of that assault?" Shroff asked jurors. "Of course not."
• Dunn was released from custody but rearrested when a team of armed federal agents in riot gear raided his home. The White House posted a highly produced "propaganda" video of the raid on its official X account, Dunn's lawyers said. His lawyers urged the judge to dismiss the case for what they allege is a vindictive and selective prosecution. They argued that posts by the White House and Attorney General Pam Bondi—who announced his firing in a social media post that referred to him as "an example of the Deep State"—show Dunn was impermissibly targeted for his political speech.