Hurling a sandwich at a federal agent was an act of protest for Washington, D.C., resident Sean Charles Dunn. A jury must decide if it was also a federal crime. “No matter who you are, you can’t just go around throwing stuff at people because you’re mad,” Assistant U.S. Attorney John Parron told jurors on Nov. 4 at the start of Dunn's trial on a misdemeanor assault charge. Dunn doesn't dispute that he threw his submarine-style sandwich at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent outside a nightclub on the night of Aug. 10. It was an “exclamation point” for Dunn as he expressed his opposition to President Donald Trump’s law-enforcement surge in the nation’s capital, defense attorney Julia Gatto said during the trial's opening statements. “It was a harmless gesture at the end of him exercising his right to speak out,” Gatto said. “He is overwhelmingly not guilty.” A bystander's cellphone video of the confrontation went viral on social media, turning Dunn into a symbol of resistance against Trump’s monthslong federal takeover. Murals depicting him mid-throw popped up in the city virtually overnight. “He did it. He threw the sandwich,” Gatto told jurors. “And now the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia has turned that moment — a thrown sandwich — into a criminal case, a federal criminal case charging a federal offense.” A grand jury refused to indict Dunn on a felony assault count, part of a pattern of pushback against the Department of Justice's prosecution of surge-related criminal cases. After the rare rebuke from the grand jury, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office charged Dunn instead with a misdemeanor. CBP Agent Gregory Lairmore, the government's first witness, said 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. Lairmore and other CBP agents were standing in front of a club hosting a “Latin Night” when Dunn approached and shouted profanities at them, calling them “fascists” and “racists” and chanting “shame." “Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!” Dunn shouted, according to police. Lairmore testified that he and the other agents tried to de-escalate the situation. “He was red-faced. Enraged. Calling me and my colleagues all kinds of names,” he said. “I didn't respond. That's his constitutional right to express his opinion.” After throwing the sandwich, Dunn ran off but was apprehended about a block away. Jurors saw video from an officer's body camera after Dunn's arrest. “I was trying to draw them away from where they were,” Dunn said on the video. “I succeeded.” Later, 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.” Defense attorney Sabrina Schroff pointed to those as proof that the agents recognize the case is “overblown” and “worthy of a joke.” Parron told jurors that everybody is entitled to their views about Trump's federal surge. “Respectfully, that's not what this case is about,” the prosecutor said. “You just can't do what the defendant did here. He crossed a line.” Dunn was a DOJ employee who worked as an international affairs specialist in its criminal division. After Dunn’s arrest, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced his firing in a social media post that referred to him as “an example of the Deep State.” 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. Dunn's lawyers have argued that the posts by Bondi and the White House show Dunn was impermissibly targeted for his political speech. They urged U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols to dismiss the case for what they allege is a vindictive and selective prosecution. Nichols, who was nominated by Trump, didn't rule on that request before the trial started on Nov. 3. Dunn is charged with assaulting, resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating and interfering with a federal officer. Dozens of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol were convicted of felonies for assaulting or interfering with police during the Jan. 6 attack. Trump pardoned or ordered the dismissal of charges for all of them.

Holly Springs officials have filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Mississippi Public Service Commission accusing the agency of exceeding its authority and for violating the city’s right to due process. The complaint, filed Thursday, comes less than two months since the PSC voted to impose daily fines of up to $12,500 against the city for failing to address deficiencies with its power system. The Holly Springs Utility Department, which serves about 12,000 customers across multiple counties, has struggled for years to maintain its power grid infrastructure and subsequently left customers with frequent electric outages. In September, just days before imposing the daily fines, the PSC held a hearing in New Albany to listen to the utility’s customers and to give city officials a chance to respond. After the session, the three-member commission voted unanimously to move forward with steps to place the utility into a receivership. But the commission, the new complaint alleges, overstepped its authority by interfering with the city’s contract with the Tennessee Valley Authority. Since 1935, Holly Springs has purchased and distributed electricity from TVA, a federal agency created under the New Deal to provide power to rural areas in the Southeast. Because TVA is a federal body, the lawsuit says, the PSC can’t “intrude upon” the city’s power agreement. TVA, though, has itself recently sued Holly Springs for multiple breaches of the contract. That lawsuit, filed in May, alleges the city took money from the utility department before ensuring the electric system was stable, among other financial mishaps. After a stay in the case, U.S. District Judge Debra Brown ordered the parties last week to show cause by Tuesday. The PSC didn’t allow the city an “opportunity to cure (its) alleged negligence,” Holly Springs’ lawsuit also claims. The city had elected a new mayor and brought on new counsel shortly before the September hearing. “As a result, the Plaintiff was unable to conduct a full review of the case file, identify relevant evidence, or prepare a complete presentation of its position,” the complaint says. “Proceeding under such circumstances deprived the Plaintiff of a meaningful opportunity to be heard, in violation of fundamental due process principles.” The PSC’s authority over the city’s utility department came from state legislation in 2024. Republican Sen. Neil Whaley of Potts Camp wrote the bill, which allows the PSC to investigate whether utility service for certain customers is “reasonably adequate.” The commission’s September hearing found Holly Springs fell short of that bar. The PSC told Mississippi Today on Monday that it has only issued one fine of $12,500 against the city so far. Kyle Jones, an attorney for the commission, said, while the city is subject to further fines as long as it provides inadequate service, the PSC would have to hold another hearing before it could actually impose more fines. Regarding next steps toward placing the utility under a receivership, the PSC said it would present its petition to a chancery court judge through the state attorney general’s office. The AG’s office did not respond to a request for comment before publication.

A Colorado judge on Nov. 3 rejected the plea deal of a funeral home owner accused of stashing nearly 190 decaying bodies in a bug-infested building after family members of the deceased argued that the deal's 15- to 20-year sentence was too lenient. Carie Hallford and her husband, Jon Hallford, owned Return to Nature Funeral Home and are accused of dumping the bodies in a building in a rural town between 2019 and 2023, giving families fake ashes and defrauding the federal government out of nearly $900,000. Both pleaded guilty to 191 counts of corpse abuse last year, and State District Court Judge Eric Bentley has now rejected both of their plea deals after family members asked for a more severe punishment. A judge rejecting a plea deal is unusual, and Carie Hallford can now either withdraw her guilty plea or continue without the deal, meaning she could get a higher sentence. Jon Hallford withdrew his guilty plea and is scheduled for trial. After the discovery of the bodies, families learned that their relatives’ remains were not in the urn or the ashes they ceremonially spread but instead were languishing with nearly 190 other bodies. Some said they had nightmares of what their loved one must have looked like in that building; others wondered about their relatives' souls.