CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte immigration agents losing key surveillance video in a case accusing protesters of assaulting them is “troubling,” a federal judge said Monday. But it’s not enough to justify tossing charges, he said.

Neither are the false statements agents once made about protesters Heather Morrow and William Stanley, U.S. District Judge Matthew Orso said during a 2 1/2-hour hearing Monday morning. The final case stemming from the Trump administration’s “Operation Charlotte’s Web” will go to trial next week, he ordered.

Morrow, a former Mecklenburg county commission candidate, and Stanley, a local college student, are accused of assaulting agents while protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol during the agencies’ weeklong operation in Charlotte in November.

Despite their attorneys’ objections and claims the federal government has mishandled their cases, Morrow and Stanley will go before a federal jury on federal misdemeanor charges of assaulting, resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating and interfering with government officials. They also face petty misdemeanor offenses of: obstructing entrances on a federal property; disrupting government officials’ duties and failing to comply with officials’ orders.

If convicted, they face up to a year in prison or a $100,000 fine for the misdemeanor charge and one month or $5,000 fines for each of the petty charges.

Several U.S. citizens in Charlotte faced similar federal assault charges while following and documenting agents arresting people in immigrant communities, in public, in country clubs and in apartment complexes last year.

U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson dropped all those cases — except Morrow and Stanley’s.

Feds dropped ICE assault charges once, but won’t again

Morrow was arrested on Nov. 16 and was originally charged with felony assaulting, resisting and impeding a federal officer at the ICE office off Tyvola Centre Road. A criminal complaint based on agent interviews alleged Morrow approached an officer from behind and “forcibly made physical contact” while “grabbing the officer’s shoulders and attempting to jump on the officer’s back.”

She did this, agents said, as they were trying to arrest another man for “punching the window of the officer’s vehicle and impeding the officer’s path.”

Bystander video shows Stanley stood in front of and put his hands on the hood of agents’ car as they tried to enter the parking lot adjacent to the ICE building. It does not show him punching windows.

The video also shows that when agents started to arrest Stanley, Morrow ran to them and reached one hand toward an agent’s shoulder. She did not grab both his shoulders and attempt to jump on his back, as the felony complaint alleged.

Assistant U.S. attorneys dismissed the felony charges after seeing the video. Then they filed new misdemeanor charges based on the same incident.

Morrow’s attorney, Rob Heroy, argued Monday that the misdemeanor charges are based on the same agents’ inaccurate testimony.

While questioning FBI Special Agent Michael Gregory, who interviewed the involved agents and ultimately filed charges against the protesters, Heroy asked: “Is it a crime if someone lies to you in these interviews?”

“Yes, it is,” Gregory replied.

Lost video, false statements in Charlotte ICE case

Defense attorneys asked Orso — a newly Trump-appointed district judge — to dismiss all those misdemeanor charges in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina Monday.

Heroy, Xavier de Jannon, Claire Rauscher and James P. Cooney, III argued agents violated due process not only with their false statements, but also by failing to preserve video evidence.

Gregory, the special agent, testified Monday that he reviewed ICE surveillance footage days after the alleged November assault. He found video that showed a limited view of a man and woman in the parking lot next to a car similar to the station wagon Morrow drives. He thought the video was important to the case, he said, and gave agents a “simple instruction” to preserve it.

But they didn’t. Now, that footage is lost.

Orso said he would not dismiss the charges and could not find that the agents acted in bad faith. Although, he said, they may have acted with “extreme negligence.”

The false-statement claims, Orso said, apply only to the previous felony charges that have already been dismissed. They do not apply to the charges in front of him now, he said. However, he held open the possibility for attorneys to bring up agents’ initial statements during trial.

They could shed light on agents’ credibility as witnesses, he said.

Orso also left the issue of whether the alleged assault happened on government property or just outside it (a detail that could make some charges moot) up to the jury.

“ICE is not on trial in this courtroom,” Orso stated before ordering attorneys not to argue about the politics and policies of recent immigration enforcement.

Next week’s jury will be anonymous, Orso said, “to prevent harassment from either political side.”

_____

©2026 The Charlotte Observer. Visit at charlotteobserver.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.