Sean Dunn walked out of federal courtroom Thursday relieved he not confronted the potential for jail time. Higher referred to as the D.C. “Sandwich Guy,” the 37-year-old was discovered not responsible by a jury of assaulting a U.S. Border Patrol agent along with his now-famous submarine toss.
However Dunn continues to be wrestling with all the eye from his arrest and trial, and the data that he altered his future with a viral second of protest.
“The artwork, the memes – I’m glad that I could inspire people,” Dunn advised HuffPost in his first interview following his acquittal. “I’m not comfortable with the ‘hero’ narrative. And it’s been… honestly, it’s been uncomfortable for me. All the attention has made me uncomfortable.”
Dunn, an Air Pressure veteran, is soft-spoken and describes himself as a personal particular person — fairly completely different from the man who was shouting “fascist” and “shame” at a bunch of federal brokers earlier than bouncing a Subway footlong off the chest of Gregory Lairmore, a Border Patrol division chief. For context, the incident occurred at 11 p.m. on a Sunday in D.C.’s U Road NW nightlife hall, close to an LGBTQ+ membership that was internet hosting a Latin evening.
Telephone footage of the encounter was already exploding on social media as Dunn was being held at a Metropolitan Police Division station. He was arraigned in Superior Courtroom the next day earlier than being launched and returning to his D.C. residence. Then issues began to get surreal.
“I’m not comfortable with the ‘hero’ narrative. … All the attention has made me uncomfortable.”
– Sean Dunn on his sudden celeb
That Wednesday evening, a squadron of federal brokers descended on Dunn’s residence constructing, trying armed for battle.
“I knew they might be coming,” Dunn recalled. “I had talked with [my lawyer] and she was going to arrange for me to surrender myself. But it was getting late, we hadn’t heard back, and I was worried they might be coming. When I got the knock on my door, I knew it was them.”
Dunn mentioned he advised the brokers by the closed door that he wished to name his lawyer, however they didn’t let him.
“The door opened and they had rifles drawn, pointed at me, with riot shields,” he mentioned. “They had gotten a key from the building manager, so they didn’t actually break down the door. It was frightening when it was occurring. And of course I didn’t resist.”
Dunn didn’t attain his lawyer till the next day.
Then the White Home posted a slickly produced promotional video of Dunn’s re-arrest on social media, presumably funded by taxpayer {dollars}. Dunn and his lawyer understood why he was by no means in a position to give up himself.
Pam Bondi, President Donald Trump’s lawyer common, issued a gleeful assertion saying Dunn was charged with felony assault of a federal agent, which carries as much as eight years in jail. She additionally mentioned he’d been fired from his job as a Justice Division paralegal, calling Dunn “an example of the Deep State we have been up against.”
“It was very uncomfortable to have the attorney general and the [U.S.] attorney making statements about me,” Dunn mentioned. “When you have such powerful people speaking about you personally, it’s very frightening.”
With no job, Dunn couldn’t afford to pay a high-priced lawyer out of pocket. His lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, represents indigent shoppers assigned to her in federal courtroom; she dealt with the case with no price. Julia Gatto and Nicholas Silverman, attorneys on the huge regulation agency Steptoe, supplied help professional bono. “Thanks goodness,” Dunn mentioned of his authorized workforce.
As a result of he was fired for trigger, Dunn has not been receiving unemployment advantages. Mates launched a GoFundMe (“Help support the Sandwich Guy”) on his behalf.
Dunn’s sandwich toss preceded Trump’s takeover of policing in Washington by a matter of hours. As masked immigration officers started roaming the town and snatching up immigrants, Dunn’s second of comical defiance gave a elevate to progressives who felt as if all the things was coming unmoored. It additionally supplied journalists and Dunn supporters with a seemingly countless properly of puns.
“The door opened and they had rifles drawn, pointed at me, with riot shields.”
– Sean Dunn on his re-arrest
Seeing the avenue artwork boosted Dunn in flip.
“If I could inspire people and give them hope, that’s great,” he mentioned.
Jeanine Pirro, Trump’s U.S. Legal professional for D.C., downgraded the cost to a misdemeanor after a grand jury declined to return an indictment on the felony — one in all a number of repudiations D.C. jurors have delivered Pirro throughout Trump’s D.C. crackdown. However prosecutors stored Dunn’s case in federal courtroom, and the potential for as much as a 12 months in jail nonetheless loomed over him.
The seriousness of the state of affairs helped him stay stone-faced by some absurd courtroom proceedings.
Lairmore, a federal agent for 23 years, testified on cross-examination that the sandwich “kind of exploded” upon influence, and that he felt it by his ballistic vest. He couldn’t testify to what sort of sandwich it was, however maintained that he “could smell the onions and mustard,” prompting a snort from an observer within the gallery.
The protection workforce confirmed a photograph wherein the offending sandwich gave the impression to be largely intact in its Subway wrapper — an obvious contradiction that Shroff highlighted in her closing argument.
She advised the jury that the case was finally “about a sandwich.”
“A sandwich that, according to agent Lairmore, somehow both exploded on his chest in a spray of onions and mustard, but also landed intact on the ground still in its Subway wrapping,” she mentioned.
After the decision, Dunn gave a press release to the press, went house to his residence and referred to as his mom, his aunt and an outdated supervisor who’d been following the case.
“I’m ready to move on,” he mentioned.
Regardless of his acquittal, the ordeal has come at a steep private price. Dunn hoped to at some point retire from the federal authorities with a great pension. He had accrued three years with the U.S. Forest Service and practically one other three on the Justice Division. His 5 years within the Air Pressure included a deployment to Kandahar, Afghanistan, from July 2010 to January 2011.
“It makes my future very uncertain,” Dunn mentioned. “It was feeling a little less certain anyway with so many layoffs of federal employees. But I had a total of more than 10 years of federal service, so I was expecting to someday retire from federal service. And to suddenly have that all taken away, I’m still processing it and navigating. I need to find a job.”
Dunn shouldn’t be gloating in regards to the verdict. Trump’s Justice Division has been smashing norms by pursuing prosecutions towards the president’s critics. On his lawyer’s recommendation, Dunn didn’t wish to talk about the particulars of the sandwich incident or his considering that evening. However he was keen to reply one query that, someway, was by no means resolved in the course of the trial.
“It was turkey,” Dunn mentioned of the sandwich.
And sure, it got here with onions and mustard.
