By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) -A federal judge ruled on Friday there was a realistic likelihood that the criminal charges the U.S. Department of Justice brought against Kilmar Abrego, the alleged gang member who was wrongly deported by President Donald Trump's administration to El Salvador, amounted to a vindictive prosecution.
U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Nashville, Tennessee, cited statements administration officials made celebrating the charges brought against Abrego as evidence the indictment may have been pursued in retaliation for a lawsuit he brought in Maryland challenging his wrongful deportation.
Crenshaw pointed to "remarkable statements" Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche made on Fox News that prosecutors started investigating Abrego after a judge in Maryland questioned his removal and found the government "had no right to deport him."
Blanche during the June 6 interview said Abrego was not returned to the United States “for any other reason than to face justice."
Crenshaw said those statements could directly establish that the motivations for Abrego's charges stem from the exercise of his rights to bring suit against the administration over his deportation, "rather than a genuine desire to prosecute him for alleged criminal misconduct."
Federal law allows for the dismissal of criminal charges if a judge determines they were brought to punish someone for exercising their due process rights. Such requests rarely succeed.
But Crenshaw, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, said Abrego had carried his burden of showing he was likely vindictively prosecuted. He said Abrego was entitled to obtain further evidence from the government and have a hearing to decide whether the case should be dismissed.
Representatives for Abrego and the Justice Department declined to comment.
Abrego, a native of El Salvador who had been living in Maryland, was deported and imprisoned in El Salvador in March despite a 2019 judicial ruling that he could not be sent there because of a risk of gang persecution.
Abrego challenged that deportation in a civil lawsuit before a federal judge in Maryland. The U.S. Supreme Court in April upheld an order from the Maryland judge that the Trump administration facilitate Abrego's return.
In June, Abrego was returned to the U.S. after prosecutors secured an indictment in Tennessee accusing him of transporting migrants in the U.S. illegally as part of a smuggling ring. Abrego has pleaded not guilty and has disputed that he was a gang member.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Leslie Adler)
