Charges detail planning, execution of St. Paul anti-ICE church demonstration after 30 more indicted

Newly unsealed federal indictments level charges against 30 more people involved in an ICE protest during a St. Paul, Minnesota, church service last month and reveal what prosecutors say was a carefully crafted operation that terrorized and physically threatened congregants and pastors.

“At my direction, federal agents have already arrested 25 of them, with more to come throughout the day,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a social media post announcing the indictments on Friday. “YOU CANNOT ATTACK A HOUSE OF WORSHIP. If you do so, you cannot hide from us – we will find you, arrest you, and prosecute you.”

The case relates to a demonstration at Cities Church in St. Paul, where on Jan. 18 protesters disrupted a Sunday service after determining that one of the pastors, David Easterwood, is the acting director of the local ICE field office.

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon, Minneapolis civil rights activist Nekima Armstrong, independent Twin Cities journalist Georgia Fort and others were initially charged in the incident. The defendants were accused of crimes of conspiracy against the rights of religious freedom at a place of worship and violating the FACE Act, which typically protects houses of worship.

The first groups of defendants began making initial federal court appearances Friday afternoon in St. Paul, with 19 of the 25 who were in custody going before a judge. The courtroom on the upper floor was packed, as was an overflow room where Twin Cities residents, observers who track ICE and friends of the defendants sat and listened to the proceedings while protesters chanted outside.

The appearances moved slowly, with the Department of Justice signaling it did not wish to detain the new defendants following Friday’s appearance. They were ordered released on the condition that they stay away from the block where Cities Church is located.

Ariel Hauptman, one of the newly indicted protest participants, hugged her husband, William Kelly, who has also been charged in the case.

“This is not American, this is not justice, this is the department of injustice,” Kelly said. “We will fight this tooth and nail, we will fight this through the courts, we will fight this in the street.”

Doug Wardlow, an attorney for the church, said in a statement following the mass indictments: “Houses of worship are off limits for those who would use chaos and intimidation to advance a political agenda. The invasion of Cities Church was a planned, coordinated effort to disrupt a worship service and interfere with religious exercise that placed congregants, including children, in fear for their lives. The First Amendment does not give anyone – regardless of profession, prominence, or politics – license to storm a church and intimidate, threaten, and terrorize families and children worshiping inside.”

According to an indictment, which now totals 39 defendants, filed Thursday and unsealed Friday:

Armstrong and three others organized the protest, dubbed “Operation Pullup,” and promoted it on Instagram and Facebook. They met at a shopping center for a “pre-operation briefing” and provided instruction on how it would commence.

The allegations in the indictment said: “Once at the church, all of the defendants entered the Church to conduct a takeover-style attack and engaged in various acts in furtherance of the conspiracy.”

On Jan. 17, the day before the protest, Armstrong received texts from “a local news correspondent in Minnesota” that an ICE agent was a pastor at the church, which Armstrong deemed “outrageous.”

Members of the group conducted reconnaissance of the church and made a video of their observations, including where they could “pull up,” with defendant Chauntyll Allen noting that “my thoughts are to be able to clog up this whole alleyway right here.”

That day, the group exchanged text messages, and Armstrong was advised of Lemon’s plan to travel to Minneapolis “for the operation Pullup action.”

On the morning of Jan. 18, participants met in the parking lot of a Cub Foods on University Avenue in St. Paul to discuss “how the operation would be conducted once they arrived at the Church.”

This included a first wave of people that would enter in “an undercover capacity” and position themselves around the sanctuary, followed by a second wave “commencing the disruptive takeover operation, in which the first wave of agitators then actively joined.”

That same morning, Lemon began livestreaming on his internet-based “The Don Lemon Show,” where he told his audience that he “was in Minnesota with an organization that was gearing up for a ‘resistance’ operation against the federal government’s immigration policies, and he took steps to maintain operational secrecy by reminding certain co-conspirators to not disclose the target of the operation.”

Before heading to the church, Lemon advised his livestream audience: “‘We’re going to head to the operation. Again, we’re not going to give any of the information away” about where they were heading.

Once there, Lemon told two co-defendants, “I don’t think we can go inside, right? No, no no.” But they went inside anyway.

As a different pastor began his sermon, Armstrong interrupted the service “with loud declarations about the Church harboring a ‘Director of ICE’ ” before other protesters joined in with various anti-ICE chants. Some in the congregation interpreted various gestures by the protesters as threats of violence or a mass shooting.

The protesters kept up their disruptive acts, including blocking people in the sanctuary as they tried to leave.

Lemon acknowledged on his livestream that one young man in the sanctuary was afraid to the point of crying and that he understood why the outburst was “‘traumatic and uncomfortable’” for the congregants. In any event, he added, that was the purpose of the protest.

At one point, Lemon, Fort and two others approached one pastor and surrounded him while Lemon asked him questions designed to promote the protest’s message.

One congregant told police at the scene that some of the protesters blocked the stairs leading to the child care area, making it difficult for parents to retrieve their young ones.