Woman found not guilty of assaulting FBI agent during ICE arrest outside DC Jail

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Source: WUSA9

WASHINGTON — A jury found a woman not guilty Thursday of assaulting an FBI agent during an ICE arrest outside DC Jail.

The verdict comes after less than two hours of deliberation on the third day of the trial of Sidney Lori Reid, which had been marred by several issues with prosecutors’ evidence. Reid smiled and hugged her attorneys as cheers came from the gallery when the verdict was announced.

Reid was accused of assaulting FBI agent Eugenia Bates back in July while being detained. She was outside DC Jail filming Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who were waiting to arrest two people. As she was filming, ICE officer Vincent Liang grabbed her arms and began to detain her against a wall, surveillance video shown during the trial showed. .......

A felony version of the charge was rejected three times by grand juries, before U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro’s office moved to bring this lesser, misdemeanor charge. During grand jury testimony, Liang claimed that Reid was the one who made first contact. U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan said Wednesday that video evidence showed that wasn’t true. He was not brought as a witness during the trial — something Abe questioned in closing.

Bates was the sole witness called by prosecutors and spent more than five hours on the stand across two days. Much of the questioning centered on her text messages following the incident, where she downplayed it and disparaged Reid as a "libtard." She didn't turn over additional text message evidence until early Wednesday morning, and in the middle of cross examination, Abe discovered one message was missing.


Read more: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/legal/sidney-reid-trial-not-guilty-fbi-agent-ice-arrest-assault-charge-dc-jail/65-fa3b180e-e72f-43d2-ad36-bbcc91fad9d0

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1. Pirro loses misdemeanor assault trial after failing three times to get felony indictment

This made me smile

Pirro loses misdemeanor assault trial after failing three times to get felony indictment

— #TuckFrump (@realtuckfrumper.bsky.social) 2025-10-16T20:58:23.000Z

https://www.rawstory.com/jeanine-pirro-sydney-lori-reid/

U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro's office failed to secure a misdemeanor conviction against a woman after also failing three attempts to have grand juries indict her on felony assault charges.

In July, Pirro's office accused Sydney Lori Reid, 44, of assaulting FBI agent Eugenia Bates while she was assisting ICE officer Vincent Liang, who was waiting to arrest two people outside of DC Jail. Liang grabbed Reid as she was filming and pushed her against a wall.

"During Reid's active resistance to being detained, the FBI agent's hand was injured from striking and scraping the cement wall causing lacerations while the FBI agent was assisting ICE ERO officers," a press release from the Department of Justice said in July.

After failing to secure felony indictments from grand juries, Reid was charged with assault. But the prosecution's case was plagued by evidence problems during the trial.

Bates spent much of her three days on the stand explaining text messages that downplayed her injuries and described Reid as a "libtard." The final text messages turned over on Wednesday morning did not include what defense attorneys said was "the most damning one."

[MarineCombatEngineer]

2. Now comes the smears against the judge, jury, defense lawyers from Pirro, Bondi, etc

as being "radical left wing terrorists" because these clowns can't get a conviction.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. Trial shows that ICE agents lied, concealed evidence in an illegal effort to convict the "libtard" who filmed them.

Link to tweet

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4. Deadline Legal Blog-Not guilty verdict in ICE case sends stark message to Trump DOJ's political prosecutions

It’s not only grand jurors who have rejected the Trump administration’s charges. A trial jury just did the same.

TACO and his minion’s frivolous prosecutions are failing left and right (pun intended).

Not guilty verdict in ICE case sends stark message to Trump DOJ’s political prosecutions www.msnbc.com/deadline-whi...

— Keith Nelson (@msahara.bsky.social) 2025-10-17T18:14:17.538Z

https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/sidney-reid-not-guilty-verdict-ice-trump-doj-rcna238137

There’s already a stunning pattern of grand jurors rejecting indictments sought by the Justice Department in President Donald Trump’s second term — specifically when it comes to allegations of assaulting law enforcement in connection with protests against the administration’s abuses of power. As time goes on, we’ll learn what trial jurors think of the politically motivated cases that make it that far.

We got a prime example Thursday in the case of Sidney Reid, who was acquitted in Washington, D.C.

Grand jurors had declined to approve a felony indictment against her a shocking three times. But instead of taking those serial rejections as a sign of serious problems with the case (a rare failure to get past even one grand jury should’ve done that), the DOJ in Jeanine Pirro’s office moved forward with a misdemeanor prosecution, which didn’t require grand jury approval. Law enforcement had alleged that Reid “forcefully pushed” an FBI agent’s hand against a cement wall and “caused lacerations” on the agent’s hand during an immigration enforcement protest.

Powerful statements from Reid and her lawyers following the not guilty verdict frame the stakes in her case — and in Trump’s second term more broadly. She said the verdict “shows that this administration and their peons are not able to invoke fear in all citizens.” Calling the president “a crazy person,” she said she even felt sorry for the prosecutors, “who must be burdened by Trump’s irrational and unfounded hatred for his fellow man.” Her lawyers, Tezira Abe and Eugene Ohm of the federal public defender’s office, said the DOJ “can continue to take these cases to trial to suppress dissent and to try and intimidate the people. But in the end, as long as we have a jury system, our citizens will continue to rebuke the DOJ through speedy acquittals.”

Wow. Sidney Reid, the DC woman just found not guilty of assaulting an FBI agent, issues a withering and gutsy statement on Trump through her attorneys.

"I feel sorry for the prosecutors really, who must be burdened by Trump's irrational and unfounded hatred for his fellow man."

It's a must-read:

— Dave Jamieson (@jamieson.bsky.social) 2025-10-16T21:34:12.919Z

In another notable case, in which D.C. grand jurors refused to approve felony charges against sandwich thrower Sean Dunn, prosecutors are also moving forward with a misdemeanor case after failing to get an indictment. Ahead of his potential trial, this week Dunn filed a motion to dismiss the misdemeanor assault charge based on vindictive and selective prosecution......

While the standard to secure indictments is relatively low — making the failure to get them in several cases this year so remarkable — prosecutors must convince jurors beyond a reasonable doubt in any case that makes it to trial. Reid’s acquittal is a message to the administration — and to the lawyers trying these cases — that it’s one thing to get past (or in Reid’s case, around) a grand jury, but trial juries can stand in the way of convictions for bogus or weak charges

[Mz Pip]

6. I hope she sues for damages

Reid’s life has been disrupted by this vindictive prosecution. I hope she files a lawsuit to recoup her losses snd then some.

[electric_blue68]

5. Good! One for Truth, and Against ICE Assaults!

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7. DC Woman Accused Of Assaulting Agent During ICE Encounter Found Not Guilty

Prosecutor Jeanine Pirro failed to secure a felony indictment against the woman three times, then lost a jury trial on a misdemeanor charge. Ouch.

DC Woman Accused Of Assaulting Agent During ICE Encounter Found Not Guilty
www.huffpost.com/entry/sidney...

— Billy Camou (@billycamou.bsky.social) 2025-10-17T15:57:39.330Z

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sidney-lori-reid-not-guilty_n_68f154a8e4b017d85b748cf0?origin=home-whats-happening-unit

A Washington, D.C., woman accused of assaulting a federal agent was found not guilty by a jury on Thursday, the latest embarrassment for Jeanine Pirro, President Donald Trump’s U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

Prosecutors had alleged Sidney Lori Reid kicked a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent during an altercation outside the D.C. Jail in July. Reid had been filming Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers while they were detaining a man who’d just been released from the jail.

Pirro’s office tried three times to indict Reid on a felony assault charge, but D.C. grand juries declined to return an indictment each time — a highly unusual occurrence that suggested the flimsiness of the government’s case.

After whiffing on the felony counts, prosecutors ended up trying Reid on a misdemeanor charge of assaulting or impeding a federal agent — but they couldn’t even win that case. The jury deliberated for less than two hours on Thursday before returning the verdict of not guilty, WUSA9 reported.

Reid, in a statement through her attorneys, said the verdict shows “that this administration and their peons are not able to invoke fear in all citizens.”