Federal judges in Fort Worth handed down maximum sentences to eight people charged in connection with a July 2025 demonstration outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center that devolved into vandalism and the shooting of a police officer.
Benjamin Song was sentenced to 100 years in prison and Maricela Rueda to 70. Savanna Batten, Elizabeth Soto, Meaghan Morris, Autumn Hill, and Zachary Evetts each received sentences of 50 years. Daniel Sanchez Estrada, who was not at the demonstration, was sentenced to 30 years on charges relating to concealing documents in the investigation. Judges in the Northern District of Texas ruled that each defendant will serve their sentence on each charge consecutively, dramatically lengthening their time in prison.
The case has been seen as a barometer for how far the Trump administration can go in its campaign to crack down on political opponents, in part by using broad conspiracy statutes to sweep people accused of very different conduct into one single alleged terrorism plot.
Officials at DOJ and DHS have held the case up as a prime example of their fight against the broad cohort of anti-administration activism that they deem “Antifa.” After the defendants were convicted in March, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi said that the verdict would “not be the last as the Trump administration systematically dismantles Antifa and finally halts their violence on America’s streets.”
The prosecution focused on events that took place at ICE’s Prairieland Detention Facility on July 4 of last year. There, demonstrators arrived dressed in black to hold a “noise demonstration” involving fireworks to show support for those detained in the facility. A group of demonstrators broke off from the group; they began to vandalize cars and surveillance infrastructure outside the facility. After a police officer arrived, Song picked up a rifle and shot the responding officer, wounding him.
Federal prosecutors initially charged the group with attempted murder of a federal officer and use of a firearm. But after the killing of Charlie Kirk, the White House issued sweeping directives to stage a crackdown on Trump’s political opponents, and federal prosecutors in Dallas-Fort Worth ramped up the charges. They framed the group as the “North Texas Antifa Cell,” and brought charges of material support of terrorism against the activists.
The DfW Support Committee, a group advocating for the defendants, expressed horror at the sentences in a statement to TPM.
“Our loved ones did nothing wrong and they are being thrown away for the rest of their lives,” a committee representative wrote. “Not only does the evidence prove their innocence, but the actions of ICE and the federal government over the past year have proved the righteousness of their actions. This sentencing is a punishment for solidarity itself. We will continue to fight to bring our loved ones home.”
The Prairieland case was the first in what’s becoming a nationwide trend of broad conspiracy cases brought against protestors. In Alabama, prosecutors brought material support for terrorism charges against a pair of people who allegedly set a shopping cart on fire in a Walmart after a Black Lives Matter protest. In Minneapolis this month, prosecutors charged a group of ICE protestors in a conspiracy indictment that centered on their supposed involvement in “Antifa.”
In Prairieland, prosecutors folded defendants who were not alleged to have committed any act of violence into a case that centered on allegations around the attempted murder of a responding police officer. Savanna Batten and Elizabeth Soto, two area activists, were not alleged to have belonged to discussion groups where the demonstration was planned. In Batten’s case, prosecutors relied on her black garb as a means to tie her to the conspiracy; in Soto’s, prosecutors argued that her black clothing and her operation of a small printing press that produced anarchist “zines” tied her to the conspiracy. Both received sentences of 50 years on Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman for the Northern District of Texas tried the case. He called a mistrial initially after an attorney wore a shirt underneath her jacket that featured a picture of the late Jesse Jackson, who had died the same morning. During jury selection that morning, local press reports said, around three-quarters of prospective jurors expressed opposition to President Trump and ICE.
Last week, some defendants were reassigned to the district’s chief judge, Reed O’Connor. At sentencing, he reportedly called the events of July 4 not a protest, but an “assault on Democracy.” He described the case as sending a message to “anyone who shares a similar ideology,” the defendants’ committee said.
