The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent struck by a sandwich in Washington, D.C., this summer testified Tuesday during resident Sean Dunn’s federal misdemeanor trial.
CBP agent Gregory Lairmore, who was called as the government’s first witness, told jurors that the sandwich “exploded” on his chest, saying he could feel it strike even through his ballistic vest.
“You could smell the onions and the mustard,” Lairmore said.
Dunn doesn’t dispute that he threw the sandwich at the CBP agent outside a nightclub Aug. 10 as an act of protest to President Trump’s immigration crackdown and law enforcement surge in the nation’s capital. But defense attorney Julia Gatto argued during Tuesday’s opening statements that Dunn’s actions do not amount to a federal crime.
“He did it. He threw the sandwich,” Gatto said. “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.”
“It was a harmless gesture at the end of him exercising his right to speak out,” Gatto said. “He is overwhelmingly not guilty.”
A grand jury declined to indict Dunn on a felony assault charge, which carries a maximum sentence of eight years in prison. Prosecutors instead charged Dunn with a misdemeanor assault charge, which carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison, in addition to fines and probation.
Defense attorney Sabrina Shroff raised questions about Lairmore’s testimony during her cross examination, The Washington Post reported. She showed the courtroom a photo of the sandwich on the ground, almost entirely in its wrapper, after it struck the CBP agent, according to the Post.
“In fact that sandwich hasn’t exploded at all,” Shroff reportedly said.
Lairmore, according to the Post, insisted that “mustard and condiments [were] on my uniform, and an onion [was] hanging from my radio antenna that night.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney John Parron told jurors that everyone is entitled to their views about Trump’s surge in federal law enforcement but said, “Respectfully, that’s not what this case is about.”
“You just can’t do what the defendant did here. He crossed a line,” he added.
“No matter who you are, you can’t just go around throwing stuff at people because you’re mad,” Parron told jurors.
The Associated Press contributed.
Source: The Hill