W E D N E S D A Y
May 27, 2026 Vol. 46, No. 47
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Page 13
West Sub Federal charges against Straw, rest of settled lawsuit ‘Broadview 6’ dismissed with prejudice with family Criminal case folds after seven months of prosecution
whose mother ‘decomposed’ in morgue
By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter
Tears, laughter and embraces in the courtroom marked the end to months of “torture,” for Oak Park Trustee Brian Straw and his “Broadview 6” protest codefendants just days before their trial was set to start in federal court. After seven months, the criminal prosecution against Straw and several other local progressive political figures collapsed Thursday afternoon after newly unredacted transcripts revealed that the case had been “tainted” by federal prosecutors’ actions in the case’s initial grand jury proceedings. The case stemmed from allegations that the defendants were part of a crowd that had illegally blocked an ICE agent from driving into the federal immigration agency’s detention facility in Broadview last September. Oak Park’s Straw, 45th ward Democratic committeeman Michael Rabbit, Katherine “Kat” Abughazaleh, who fell four points shy of winning Illinois’ 9th district congressional primary last month, and Andre Martin, who worked on Abughazaleh’s campaign staff, are all now free from criminal prosecution. The case has
Hospital ownership agreed to $110,000 payout to family last year over cooling system’s failure in morgue By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter FILE
Straw said the prosecution had brought massive financial and personal consequences for him and his family and that he would “never get the last seven months
West Suburban Medical Center ownership settled a lawsuit with the family of a woman who “decomposed” in the hospital’s morgue as the hospital’s HVAC system failed. The hospital agreed to a $110,000 payout to the woman’s children on June 12, 2025, according to Cook County Court records. The case is just one of many serious legal matters related to the hospital’s operations to have hit the
See ‘BROADVIEW 6’ on page 18
See WEST SUB on page 23
Oak Park Trustee Brian Straw (right) and his attorney Chris Parente (left) address reporters after federal prosecutors announced that they were dropping felony charges against the remaining “Broadview 6” defendants, April 29. served as the highest profile instance of federal charges falling upon protestors who opposed the intensified “Operation Midway Blitz” immigration enforcement effort that led to a surge in deportations in Chicagoland last year.
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