On Monday, May 18, three Spokanites will stand trial for their roles in the June 11 protest that sought to stop Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers from detaining two young Venezuelan men who were in the US legally.
Jac Archer, Justice Forral and Bajun Mavalwalla II — along with six others — were charged by the federal government with conspiracy to impede a federal officer by using threats, force or intimidation to stop ICE agents from discharging their duties. The other six people arrested, including former City Council President Ben Stuckart who posted the original call asking protesters to come to the ICE building on that day, took plea deals that allowed them to avoid the threat of federal prison.
But come Monday, the three remaining defendants will have their day in court as they seek to prove that their actions on that fateful day in June were those of nonviolent civil disobedience. They say they didn’t plan to cause harm to, threaten or intimidate any officers, and don’t deserve federal felony charges.
The charge
Archer, Forral and Mavalwalla II were charged under 18 U.S. Code § 372 - Conspiracy to impede or injure an officer. Here’s how that offense is defined under the code:
If two or more persons in any State, Territory, Possession, or District conspire to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person from accepting or holding any office, trust, or place of confidence under the United States, or from discharging any duties thereof, or to induce by like means any officer of the United States to leave the place, where his duties as an officer are required to be performed, or to injure him in his person or property on account of his lawful discharge of the duties of his office, or while engaged in the lawful discharge thereof, or to injure his property so as to molest, interrupt, hinder, or impede him in the discharge of his official duties, each of such persons shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six years, or both.
For a jury to find the three defendants guilty, the federal government has to prove both that two or more people agreed to use “force, intimidation or threat,” to keep any federal officer from doing their job, to injure any federal officer or to injure the property of any federal officer. If the prosecutors can do that, they must also prove every person on trial knowingly joined the agreement.
Each defendant will be considered individually, despite all being on trial at once. That means one defendant could be found guilty while another could be found innocent.
The day in question
On June 11, 2025, protesters tried to stop ICE agents from taking two young men who were in the US legally to the ICE detention facility in Tacoma. The protest was sparked by a Facebook post from Stuckart, who was the official guardian for one of those men.
Hundreds of people showed up to the spontaneous protest, leading to a tense standoff with local law enforcement. Some protesters sat in front of a white bus and a red van waiting to transport the detainees. Early in the day, someone on a bike rode up, spray-painted the windshield of the white transport bus and left. Later, someone let out the air in the tires of that bus and someone slashed the tires of the red transport van.
Spokane police and county sheriff’s deputies arrested 31 people, but most of the charges were for “failure to disperse” and were later dropped. Then, about a month later, the federal government arrested nine people now known as the “Spokane 9” on suspicion of “conspiracy to impede or injure officers.” Two of the nine were also charged with “assault on a federal officer.” All nine initially pleaded not guilty and were awaiting trial. In December, six of the nine, including the two charged with assault, took plea deals. Since then, attorneys on both sides have been preparing for the May 18 trial. (All our coverage can be found here.)
The Protesters on Trial
Jac Archer
Jac Archer, one of the three defendants on trial, is the Co-Executive Director of Spokane Community Against Racism (SCAR). They are also a parent, a law student at a local university and a longtime activist in the Spokane community. Neither Archer nor their lawyers responded to requests for comment for this profile, but they have a longstanding record in the community.
In 2021, they were named Eastern Washington University’s Activist in Residence, where they hosted workshops on activism and protesting. The following year, Archer was honored by the Spokane NAACP and The Learning Project, receiving the Emerging Leader award for their community work. Colleagues described Archer as intentional, authentic and courageous in an announcement about the award.
While we were unable to talk to Archer for this story, Reverend Walter Kendricks — the current co-executive director of SCAR and the original co-founder of the organization alongside Sandy Williams — spoke to RANGE about Archer. He considers them a friend in addition to being a coworker and described Archer as “super intelligent, passionate and learned.”
As long as Kendricks has known Archer, they’ve been a “policy wonk.”
“It’s one thing to have an activist heart, and it’s another to get involved in policy,” Kendricks said. Jac has both, he noted.
While Kendricks wasn’t at the ICE building on June 11 (he was leading a Bible study at his church) he was shocked to see that Archer was charged for their participation in the protest. At other actions, like the George Floyd protests in 2020, Kendricks witnessed Archer and said they always had a “calm demeanor, is unconfrontational and is a law-obeyer … they’re not wild and crazy, just exercising their right to peacefully gather.”
Kendricks characterized Archer’s indictment as “vindictive” and an attempt to intimidate local activists from participating in their Constitutional right to protest: “We know that they are innocent. We know that these are bogus charges.”
Still, Archer has balanced their legal defense and their classload, their family, their friendships and their work at SCAR with the grace and attitude Kendricks knows them for.
“I think the world of Jac … Anytime you’re in the criminal justice system, it’s not a place that you want to be,” Kendricks said. “Jac is facing it with the courage, dignity and intelligence that I would expect from them.”
Jac choosing to fight the charges all the way to a jury trial instead of taking a plea deal says “all you need to know,” about who they are, according to Kendricks.
“Instead of taking a plea, they’re willing to stand up for those things that they believe in. They believe that they broke no laws, which I believe also,” Kendricks said. “You gotta fight for those things that you believe in. It’s very simple: you gotta fight.”
Justice Forral
Maybe Justice Forral was always destined to be an activist — their given name could be seen as prophetic. While Forral and their lawyers also did not provide comment by press time, they have a well-documented history of work trying to improve the circumstances of marginalized people in the Spokane community.
They currently serve as a Human Rights Commissioner for the city of Spokane, and they previously worked for SCAR. They’ve been a featured speaker at Gonzaga University and a board member of the Washington State Tenants Union.They’ve worked on political action campaigns, like the No New Jail Initiative opposing the county’s 2023 efforts to get voters to fund a new jail. They’ve appeared in RANGE coverage of local police accountability efforts, queer rights activism after repeated vandalism of rainbow crosswalks around town and our People’s Priorities series on what Spokane community organizers hoped to see in Mayor Lisa Brown’s first term.
In November of 2023, the Spokane City Council shut a meeting down early when Forral used their public testimony time to read a transcript from a previous city council meeting out loud. Then-Council President Lori Kinnear gavelled the meeting to a close after repeatedly interrupting Forral, interpreting a council rule that requires speakers to direct comments to the president to mean that they couldn’t say the names of other council members. After Forral’s public comment, which ended when the council vacated the chambers, they held their own council meeting, inviting members from the public to come to the front of the room to share testimony.
That kind of action is what Forral’s friend and fellow activist David Brookbank knows them for. Forral and Brookbank met nearly a decade ago, during efforts to stop Border Patrol agents from conducting raids on buses and at the Intermodal Center, Spokane’s Greyhound bus station.
Brookbank doggedly documented Border Patrol’s actions at the bus station (which made national news after Portland comedian Mohanad Elshieky was interrogated at the Spokane station, eventually winning a $35,000 settlement from CBP). One of his first interactions with Forral was when he took the young activist to the Intermodal Center.
Brookbank remembers standing in front of a local bar and pointed out Border Patrol vehicles parking near the station to Forral. Forral wanted to get closer, see more.
“They’re very courageous,” Brookbank said.
After the Spokane City Council passed a law restricting Border Patrol from entering the Intermodal Center, Brookbank and Forral kept fighting for the rights of some of Spokane’s most vulnerable community members. In the last few years, they’ve worked closely with Forral, speaking against Spokane’s role in the military-industrial complex that helps enable the genocide in Palestine and bombings in the Middle East. Forral’s passion, courage and skill with technology were instrumental to these community protests, Brookbank said.
Once, Brookbank saw Forral emceeing a protest in front of the courthouse while wearing a gas mask. As they spoke, they left an impression on Brookbank: “You just knew that you were in the presence of a person to be reckoned with.”
Brookbank knows Forral as more than a dedicated community activist, though. They’re also a comedian, braiding biting wit and political commentary into their stand-up sets, Brookbank said. They’re not afraid to laugh at themselves or poke fun at their stressful circumstances — see: their comedy shows both after their initial arrest on local charges they still face (“While I’m Out!”) and for their recent birthday before the trial began (“Justice Fest.”)
Forral makes the people around them braver, Brookbank said, more willing to stand up for what they believe in. On June 11, Brookbank saw people stand their ground against federal action they thought to be unjust.
“When somebody like Justice acts on their understanding of the world as it is and decides this is a moment, a collective moment, where we need to all stand up and push back, there's an opportunity for our version — the people's version — of history to be written,” he added. “I love Justice and I worry for them … If they’re on trial, then we should all be on trial.”
Bajun Mavalwalla II
Bajun Mavalwalla II, the third defendant on trial, works construction, sometimes devoting his time to fixing up friends’ homes, pro bono. He used to be in the Army National Guard, where he worked during the 2010s translating Japanese and serving a combat tour in Afghanistan.
Like the others in the case, Mavalwalla is charged with conspiracy to impede a federal officer for participating in the June 11 demonstration. The conspiracy the prosecution is alleging played out on Facebook, but Mavalwalla told RANGE he saw the post as a screenshot on Reddit.
That day, he’d planned to be at a nephew’s t-ball game not far away, so when he saw Stuckart's call for help, he went to the ICE office on Cataldo Avenue to “ see what this is about," he said in a recent interview.
“I was actually planning on still leaving and going back and watching the game,” he said. “But when I got there, it very quickly became obvious that I was gonna be there.”
He helped block the gate through which the federal officers wanted to transport the young men they’d arrested.
Like Archer, Mavalwalla wasn’t arrested the day of the protest, but more than a month later on July 15. That morning, he noticed federal officers amassing outside his home. His father Bajun Mavalwalla, who is one of about 10 of challengers for Michael Baumgartner‘s seat in the Fifth Congressional District representing Eastern Washington, recorded video of the veteran calmly being searched and detained by FBI officers.
The younger Mavalwalla’s partner Kate Gaston thinks he was targeted because of his name and ethnicity.
“If you look at the nine people who were indicted — the number of white men that were indicted versus the number of white men that were at the protest — they absolutely saw ‘Bajun Mavalwalla’ and went, ‘Yeah, that's a brown person,’” Gaston said.
The Mavalwallas have historical ties to Mahatma Gandhi, the nonviolent Indian independence activist. The younger Mavalwalla says that’s part of why he’s still fighting the case.
The younger Mavalwalla has trauma from seeing colleagues blown up in the Middle East, but he’s trying to move past that with Gaston, who is also an Army veteran (she whispered to RANGE that she, a former combat medic, has more medals than Mavalwalla). They bought land in rural Eastern Washington to set up a future of peace for themselves and their four children.
And the younger Mavalwalla has taken up a mantle of social justice. He founded a nonprofit that helped dozens of Afghani refugees escape their country when it fell to the Taliban after US President Joe Biden pulled American forces from Afghanistan in 2021.
But he doesn’t talk to that community anymore — it’s unsafe. Because of the crosshairs the government has on him and its program to oust Afghani refugees from the Unites States, it’s too dangerous for him to stay in touch with them.
“I feel like it's too big of a risk for me to even talk to these people,” he said.
“These people depended on my organization to get food and places to stay and escape and, you know, like, make their way to safety,” the younger Mavalwalla told RANGE. “It's really hard to be in a position where I'm talking to them while they're still trying to navigate through whatever this is that we're going through, and I'm putting them at more risk than is necessary.”
His sadness about this comes from a deep empathy for others, Gaston said. It’s why she loves him.
“ Bajun is one of the most caring and thoughtful people I know when it comes to other people. He's not always the kindest to himself,” Gaston said. “He expects perfection from himself. Bajun definitely thinks the world should be fair, that if we do the right thing, things should be OK, that if you follow the golden rule, life will be nice.”
On the national stage, Mavalwalla has been perhaps the most visible of the Spokane 3. He was the subject of a recent segment on PBS News and articles in The Guardian by reporter Aaron Glantz. But he’s careful with his platform, given the precarity of his situation.
He doesn’t know what will happen with his case, but he is hopeful.
“I have to believe that justice will prevail,” he said. “There's always a risk, but I think that risk is pretty low. … But I don't know what will happen. I have to wait and see.”
~ AH
Other names you need to know
The judge
Hon. Rebecca Pennell, was appointed as judge of the US Court for the Eastern District of Washington by former President Joe Biden in 2024. Pennell previously served as a judge for the Court of Appeals of Washington State from 2016 to 2024 and as a Federal Defender for Eastern Washington and Idaho from 2000 to 2016.
The lawyers
Todd Blanche, acting US Attorney General — he’s the name at the top of court filings but isn’t actively on the case
Lisa Cartier-Giroux, Assistant United States Attorney, prosecutor in the case
Rebecca Perez, Assistant United States Attorney, prosecutor in the case
Andrea George, Executive Director, Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington & Idaho and Forral’s attorney
Amy Rubin, Federal Defender, Eastern Washington and Idaho and Forral’s attorney
Carl Oreskovich, Archer’s attorney from Etter, McMahon, Lamberson, Clary, & Oreskovich P.C. Has represented clients in high-profile cases like Gonzaga Basketball player Tyon Grant-Foster’s quest for an extra year of eligibility and defending Spokane police officer Karl Thompson against excessive force charges for his role in the brutal beating death of Otto Zehm
Andrew Wagley, Archer’s attorney, also from Etter, McMahon, Lamberson, Clary, & Oreskovich P.C.
Matthew Duggan, Mavalwalla II’s attorney from Duggan Law Offices, formerly worked as a Spokane County prosecutor and Assistant US Attorney
Ainuddin “Aine” Ahmed: Mavalwalla II’s attorney. Currently practices at his own firm based out of Indiana. Ahmed was previously an Assistant US Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, alongside Duggan
The previous six
Besides Archer, Forral and Mavalwalla, six others were arrested on July 15, 2025, on charges of conspiracy to impede or injure officers. Two of those people were also charged with assault on a federal officer or employee.
All six took a plea deal to avoid time in federal prison; according to the plea, the US Attorney’s Office of Eastern Washington will drop the felony charge after they appear for a federal hearing in 18 months, replacing it with a misdemeanor charge of “depredation of government property.”
The six protesters who took plea deals are former Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart, Mikki Pike Hatfield, Erin Lang, Collin Muncey, T. Ramirez and Bobbi Silva. Pennell approved a motion to keep their guilty pleas from being introduced as evidence in court, and none of the six currently appear on witness lists. Still, Stuckart’s Facebook posts and videos of all of the protesters appear in evidence exhibit lists filed by the prosecutors.
The federal officers
The federal government alleges that there are 14 officers the defendants conspired to impede or injure.
Cartier-Giroux and Perez indicated in documents that they intend to call a slate of federal officers from the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) as witnesses.
It is unclear what each officer’s role was on June 11, but that list includes: Jared Tomaso (ATF), John LaForte (HSI), Greg McSullivan (HSI), Jason McIntosh (ICE), Jeremy Burlingame (ICE), Kevin Wilks (ICE), Lindsay Sanders (FBI), Ian Burns (FBI), Ethan Hawks (FBI), Caleb Sullivan (CBP) and Kevin Loader (FBI), who is also listed as a fact witness scheduled to provide testimony on the digital extraction of data from defendants’ phones.
The two young asylum seekers
Cesar Alexander Alvarez Perez, a asylum-seeker who was in the United States legally. Stuckart was Alvarez Perez’ guardian while he was under 21. On June 11, Alvarez Perez’ 21st birthday, he was detained at a scheduled ICE check-in at the building on Cataldo Avenue.
Joswar “Randy” Rodriguez Torres, an asylum seeker who was fleeing persecution in Venezuela and entered the US with Alvarez Perez. He was in the US legally under the humanitarian parole program and was also detained on June 11. In late January 2026, a judge ruled that Rodriguez Torres was detained in violation of his due process rights, and he was released from detention. He currently awaits an asylum appeal hearing.
The political backdrop
While the defense is not allowed to present any evidence to the court about events that happened after the June 11 protest, thankfully, we’re not banned from publishing relevant information.
On June 12, amid nationwide anti-ICE protests, the Justice Department ordered federal prosecutors across the country to prioritize and publicize prosecutions of anti-ICE protesters.
Prior to that day, we could find just one example of a protester arrested on conspiracy charges: California labor organizer David Huerta, who was charged with the felony on June 6. (His charges were later downgraded to a misdemeanor obstruction charge, and he currently awaits trial.)
After that day, though, the entire country has seen a wave of prosecutions against protesters. The Spokane 9 were arrested on July 15. In September, then-congressional-candidate Kat Abughazaleh and five other protesters were also charged with felony conspiracy and misdemeanor simple assault of a federal officer for protesting outside an Illinois detention center. Their conspiracy charges were recently tossed by a judge. In Portland, more than three dozen people were charged on a variety of alleged offenses. In Minneapolis, dozens of protesters were charged, though some of those have since been dismissed.
Meanwhile, the DOJ under Trump has asked a federal appeals court to throw out conspiracy convictions for the Proud Boys and Oath Keeper leaders who had been sentenced to prison for their roles in leading the January 6, 2021 riots, and Trump has pardoned other January 6 rioters.
In the face of this, defense attorneys for the Spokane 3 have argued that their clients’ indictment was a politically-motivated prosecution. They cited former acting US attorney for Eastern Washington Richard Barker, who told the PBS News Hour that he resigned because he couldn’t ethically pursue charges against the protesters.
“I didn't feel in this case that a conspiracy charge that would carry a six-year term of incarceration was true to who I was or who I wanted to be as a federal prosecutor,” Barker said.
Court terms you need to know
Motions, in laymen’s terms, an official request to the court.
Mens rea, means “state of mind.” This is relevant to this case because the prosecutors will have to prove defendants intended to use force, threat or intimidation to impede federal officers. That means what a defendant’s mens rea or “state of mind,” was — what they intended to do, or understood about the situation — is extremely important.
Rule 29, a type of motion that the defense can file during the trial after the government rests its case or after the trial entirely. Though often considered perfunctory, this is a request for the judge to acquit the defendants based on a lack of evidence from the government to sustain a conviction.
Voir dire, the term for jury selection. The court has sent questionnaires to potential jurors to fill out. Some jurors will be cut because of their answers to those questionnaires. Other jurors will be called to court on Monday, May 18, and the first part of the trial will be the jury selection process. There’s more info on that here.
Objection, a formal protest from lawyers for either party arguing that an error has been made. In movies, you hear lawyers yell “I object!” or “objection!” In court, it’s more like a lawyer saying “objection,” at a reasonable volume into their microphone. Pennell will then have to make a ruling. If she “sustains” the objection, she agrees with the lawyer who objected. If she overrules, she disagrees.
Jury nullification, is one term you actually won’t hear at trial, per one of Pennell’s rulings banning discussion of it in front of the jury. But here’s what it means: the jury could give a ‘not guilty’ verdict if they disagree with the law itself, the prosecution, or want to send a message.
Brady/Henthorn disclosure, information the federal government has to turn over upon request if they intend to call law enforcement officers as witnesses. Brady/Henthorn material is anything in an officer’s file that might call their credibility into question. Forral’s attorney has requested all Brady/Henthorn material, while the prosecutors recently filed a request to disallow the material from being used in court, arguing that none of the material was relevant. The motion to exclude, which the judge has yet to rule on, reads:
“There are no findings as to their credibility or honesty, rather the incidents are directly related to ongoing training or counseling as to a lesson(s) to be learned to improve performance of their duties as police officers. Further, the issues described are issues which did not result in adverse findings; they were addressed through additional training or counseling or letters of reprimand. These respective sanctions are therefore irrelevant to the officers’ credibility and ability to testify about their involvement in this matter.”
Stay informed
We will cover the trial in depth, with a reporter in the room every single day. Our stories will be posted here, and you can sign up for our newsletter here to get updates delivered to your inbox.
Aaron Hedge contributed reporting.
