Michigan Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel dropped all charges against seven University of Michigan students on Monday, a twist that shocked defense attorneys after Nessel had pushed for felony charges against the anti-Israel protesters.
The seven students faced misdemeanor charges of trespassing and felony charges of resisting and obstructing police stemming from an anti-Israel protest on Michigan’s campus last year, The Detroit Free Press reported. The courtroom, which was packed with people supporting the anti-Israel students, erupted in cheers and chants of “Free Palestine” when it was announced that the charges had been dropped.
Last September, Nessel pushed for the felony charges against the students, which could have put them behind bars for up to two years if they had been convicted. The attorney general alleged that the protesters used “physical force to counter” police officers who were attempting to clear them out of the area.
Nessel, who is Jewish, was pressured to recuse herself from the case last month as critics alleged that she was biased against Muslims. Nessel said that a letter from the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor defending her amid the accusations influenced her decision to drop the charges. The Democratic attorney general claimed that the letter — which said that Nessel “has a strong history of uplifting those in both the Muslim and Arab American communities” — was inappropriate.
“We have learned that a public statement in support of my office from a local nonprofit has been directly communicated to the court,” Nessel said. “The impropriety of this action has led us to the difficult decision to drop these charges.”
The defendants, Oliver Kozler, Samantha Lewis, Henry MacKeen-Shapiro, Michael Mueller, Asad Siddiqui, Avi Tachna-Fram, and Rhiannon Willow, were also surprised by the decision and will now walk away from the charges in this case. Lewis, who said she faces charges in a separate case over another protest, mocked the attorney general, saying that “the possibility of recusal was going to be so embarrassing for Nessel that she just couldn’t bear it.”
“And so while all of us, and that includes all of you, refused to cower, she did. And that just goes to show that the bullies and badges and the top pig are just cowards,” Lewis told a group of her supporters.
The University of Michigan called in police to break up an anti-Israel encampment on its campus last May as university leadership faced calls to push back on antisemitism at the school. Michigan was one of the numerous universities where anti-Israel students set up camp in the spring of 2024, disrupting campus life and forcing schools to ask law enforcement for help in dispersing the protesters.
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