An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on Wednesday pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of battery for throwing a protester to the ground while he filmed the agent on his phone.
Adam Saracco, 41, entered the plea during a court appearance in Maywood and was sentenced to one year of supervision.
Saracco is thought to be the first and only immigration agent charged in Cook County in connection with conduct toward protesters and civilians during Operation Midway Blitz. He was off duty at the time of the confrontation.
During the brief hearing, Saracco appeared in person and declined to make a statement during the proceedings.
Advocates and community members have applied pressure to Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke, asking her to pursue charges against agents for alleged wrongdoing during the aggressive immigration enforcement operation last fall. Burke, though, has said that her office can file charges only for on-duty incidents in narrow circumstances and that it must be referred cases by law enforcement.
Earlier this week, 10 people, including Marimar Martinez, who was shot by a Border Patrol agent last year, filed police reports in the hopes of triggering local investigations.
In Saracco’s case, the Brookfield Police Department sought charges after it was called to a gas station on Dec. 27 for a confrontation between Saracco and Robert Held, a local attorney who has often protested at the ICE processing center in nearby Broadview.
Held reported that Saracco threw him to the ground at a gas station after Held followed him from the processing facility, according to police reports.
“I don’t want anybody sticking their camera in my face. I don’t know what he’s trying to do with this,” Saracco said at the scene, according to police body camera footage obtained by the Tribune in a public records request. “I tried to grab his phone.”
At the scene, officers spoke to Saracco, Held and other witnesses.
“He got very angry that I was filming him. He ran up to me and grabbed me and threw me on the ground … and he tried to grab the phone out of me,” Held told an officer.
A witness told police she was stopped at a light and pulled around when she “saw this old man being tackled to the ground.”
“I started beeping my horn … and I said get off him!” the woman said.
Brookfield police officers initially tried to seek a felony charge, but according to police reports released by the Brookfield Police Department to the Tribune, the state’s attorney’s office “rejected Felony Approval, stating the case was more appropriate in the misdemeanor court room.”
Held also previously called on Burke’s office to upgrade the charges.
In response, the office said prosecutors “evaluate evidence in a consistent manner to ensure everyone is treated equally and held to the same legal standards” and must be able to prove every element of an alleged crime.
