DAYS BEFORE THE federal government falsely claimed cellphone-brandishing nurse Alex Pretti was a terrorist plotting a “massacre,” a jury in Chicago acquitted Juan Espinoza Martinez on bogus charges of a murder-for-hire plot against then-Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino. A recently unsealed court transcript shows the government used that case to bolster its claims about the dangers of “doxing” Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. That pretext was used to convince a judge to obscure an ICE agent’s face during a public court proceeding when his name, face, employment, and location were publicly listed on his LinkedIn page.
As with its baseless claims about Pretti, the government presented no evidence supporting its proclamations that Martinez, a union carpenter, was a higher-up in the Latin Kings gang with the ability or intent to put out hits on Bovino or other immigration agents. The case against him hinged on ambiguous Snapchat messages that Martinez’s attorney called “neighborhood gossip.” But the Department of Homeland Security brought its allegations to the public long before it could be tested in court, repeating claims of bounties up to $50,000.
The transcript from a federal court in Chicago, which was recently released pursuant to a motion filed by law firm Mandell PC on behalf of local media outlets, shows how far the hysteria has gone. During an October 20, 2025, hearing in a case challenging immigration enforcement tactics, government lawyers asked for a private conference with Judge Sara Ellis to request the courtroom sketch artist not draw ICE Deputy Field Office Director Shawn Byers.
Government attorneys claimed that, in light of the alleged “bounties” on the heads of ICE agents, Byers had taken extensive precautions to disconnect his identity from his image online to protect himself. When the judge asked for details on the bounties, Department of Justice attorney Samuel Holt responded, “I don’t have all the details. My understanding is that I — I think it was a gang bounty.”
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