DC Sandwich Guy acquitted in another embarrassment for Jeanine Pirro

WASHINGTON – The D.C. man accused of assaulting a U.S. Border Patrol agent with a Subway sandwich was found not guilty by a jury Thursday, the culmination of a three-month criminal case that was both an absurd spectacle and a deeply serious confrontation over protests and prosecution in the Trump era.

Sean Dunn, a 37-year-old Air Force veteran and former Justice Department paralegal, faced up to a year in prison for launching what became known as the funnel heard ’round the world. His acquittal after a two-day trial amounts to a rebuke to President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration and crime in Washington, as well as another embarrassing legal setback for Jeanine Pirro, the federal prosecutor for DC, whom he appointed.

“I’m very happy that justice prevailed despite everything,” Dunn said outside the courthouse after the verdict. “That night I think I was protecting the rights of immigrants… Every life matters, no matter where you come from, no matter how you got here, no matter how you identify.”

viral video on Aug. 10 showed Dunn yelling at Border Patrol Agent Gregory Lairmore before throwing a sandwich at his chest, fleeing and being arrested after a brief foot chase. With anger growing throughout the city over Trump’s takeover of the city police and deployment of the National Guard, Dunn quickly became a foot-long folk hero and symbol of anti-Trump resistance.

Pirro’s office initially filed a felony assault charge against Dunn, but a grand jury overruled prosecutors by declining to return an indictment. Eager to project the president’s tough image against the protests, Pirro refused to drop the case and proceeded with a less serious misdemeanor charge that resulted in this week’s trial.

Prosecutors were betting that jurors in liberal Washington would find Dunn’s actions amounted to an “assault,” even though he was being widely celebrated and the case mocked as a joke.

In an acknowledgment of Trump’s deep unpopularity here, prosecutors told jurors that Dunn had the right to insult Lairmore and other federal agents enlisted in local police, including calling them “fascists.” But they claimed he physically “crossed a line” by throwing the Subway sandwich at Lairmore’s chest.

“No matter who you are, you can’t go around throwing things at people because you’re angry,” John Parron, an assistant U.S. attorney, argued in his opening statement.

Dunn’s defense team described the accusation as an overzealous waste of time. They never disputed that Dunn threw the sandwich, only that it might have hurt Lairmore or prevented him from doing his job that night. They acknowledged that their client hated that Trump was “turning his hometown into a military occupation” and described the sandwich toss as an “exclamation point at the end of a verbal outburst, a harmless gesture that did not and could not cause harm or injury.”

“Dunn’s defense team described the accusation as an excessive waste of time. They never disputed that Dunn threw the sandwich, only that he might have ever injured the officer.”

“He threw that sandwich at that agent, and now the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia has turned that moment, a thrown sandwich, into a criminal case — a federal criminal case charging a federal crime,” one of Dunn’s attorneys, Julia Gatto, told jurors in her opening statement.

“His conduct is not a federal criminal case,” Gatto said. “It’s not close.”

After the sandwich toss, the Justice Department fired Dunn from his job (a firing that Attorney General Pam Bondi publicly gloated about) and the White House used footage of a swarm of heavily armed officers arresting Dunn in a promotional video pushing Trump’s takeover of the D.C. police.

The trial drew a bevy of reporters to the U.S. District Court in downtown Washington, and many observers struggled to keep a straight face during in-depth testimony about the deli projectile and its impact on the officer.

A key question for the jury was whether the sandwich could have caused “bodily harm.”

Lairmore, a 23-year division chief at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which includes Border Patrol, was sent to the streets of D.C. as part of Trump’s executive order aimed at making the city “safe and beautiful.” He said that after Dunn left the Subway sandwich shop, he berated Lairmore and other officers and seemed “obsessed” with them. The video showed Dunn calling them “fascists” repeatedly, leaving the corner and then returning with the sandwich still in his hand.

“He threw a subway-style sandwich at me, which hit me in the chest,” the officer said, narrating a video shown to the jury.

Lairmore testified that he was not injured by the sandwich, but said he could feel its impact through the ballistic vest he was wearing. It broke and “kind of exploded” when it hit his chest, he testified.

“I could smell the onions and the mustard,” he said.

The defense seemed happy to question Lairmore about the details of the sandwich, underscoring the apparent lack of seriousness of the alleged crime. Apparently they wanted to convey to the jury that the case was ridiculous and unworthy of a multi-day federal trial.

Andrew Leyden via Getty Images

Sabrina Shroff, one of Dunn’s attorneys, pressed Lairmore about whether the sandwich really “exploded” on him. She showed the jury a photo of the sandwich lying on the floor in its Subway wrapper, apparently after having bounced off Lairmore’s chest.

“That sandwich hasn’t exploded at all, has it?” Shroff asked him.

“It looks like a little bit is coming out to the bottom,” Lairmore responded.

He acknowledged that he couldn’t tell if it was a turkey or ham sandwich, and he wasn’t sure exactly what condiments it was topped with. But he could definitely tell there were onions because one was left dangling from his radio antenna.

Lairmore appeared to smile or chuckle at some of the funnier questions, including when asked about gag gifts he had received from other federal agents after the incident. One was a stuffed sandwich, which he said he had placed on the shelf in his office; the other was a patch that said “Felony Footlong,” which he had put on his lunchbox.

In a discussion with the judge about whether Lairmore should be questioned about the gifts, Shroff said they helped illuminate the “state of mind” at the agency and how the whole thing seemed like a joke, even to the alleged victim and his co-workers.

“Just ask yourself: would a man genuinely hurt, genuinely offended by having a sandwich thrown at him, proudly, happily, and joyfully display not one but two gag gifts?” Shroff told the jury in his closing argument. “Would you put it in your daily lunch box and carry it with you day after day? Of course not.”

The Dunn case is part of a series of prosecutions that Pirro has brought, alleging that D.C. residents assaulted or impeded federal agents in the performance of their duties.

“The officer testified that he was not injured by the sandwich, but said he could feel its impact through the ballistic vest he was wearing. It broke and ‘kind of exploded’ when it hit his chest, he said.”

Trump formally declared a crime emergency in Washington the day after the sandwich incident, claiming that violent crime had gotten out of control despite Justice Department statistics showing otherwise. The statement brought members of the National Guard to the streets of D.C., as well as an unusual number of agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Park Police and other federal agencies.

Many of the alleged assault cases have fallen apart in embarrassing ways, with grand juries rejecting them or prosecutors lowering or dropping charges entirely after further investigation. That includes the case against Sidney Reid, a D.C. woman who filmed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and was accused of assaulting an FBI agent. A jury found Reid not guilty last month after a trial his attorneys called a waste of money and resources.

Dunn, with short blonde hair and a mustache and goatee, remained virtually expressionless throughout the trial, dressed in a shirt and tie under a light-island sweater. He had not spoken publicly about the incident or the charges, even as posters emerged across D.C. showing a masked man raising a submarine as an act of defiance, and residents decorated their yards with Dunn-inspired skeletons for Halloween.

The only thing Dunn said during the trial was to confirm to the judge that he did not wish to testify in his defense.

The formal charge against Dunn technically covered more than just “assault”: The potential offense could also include “resisting,” “opposing,” “impeding,” or “interfering” with federal agents. Dunn’s attorneys attempted, unsuccessfully, to limit the trial to a mere matter of physical assault.

One of the main challenges for prosecutors was conveying that a sandwich throw could be considered “forced.”

“It’s a sandwich, but [he’s] throwing him hard,” said prosecutor Michael DiLorenzo. “That is sufficient for strength and meets the definition of strength.”

To expand its case, the government showed police video of Dunn after the arrest appearing to tell an officer he hoped to get officers away from his location, which prosecutors described as Dunn successfully interfering with his work that night. The incident occurred on DC’s busy U Street NW nightlife corridor, near an LGBTQ+ bar that was hosting a Latin night that night.

“I was trying to impede and interfere with his assignment that night,” Parron said.

But in the end the jury did not agree with that assessment either. They came back with the not guilty verdict in about seven hours.

Speaking outside court, Shroff thanked jurors for sending an “affirmation” that dissent “is not just tolerated.”

“It’s legal and welcome,” he said.