Washington, D.C. resident Sidney Reid was acquitted last year after being charged with assaulting and impeding federal officers during an immigration enforcement operation, and in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, revealed that a secret recording may very well have spared her from 20 years behind bars.
“If I didn’t have the video, I would 100% be in jail right now,” Reid told the Journal for its investigative report earlier this month.
Federal immigration enforcement agents were approaching a D.C. jail last year after having received a tip from a jailer that an alleged undocumented migrant was set to be released — a tip that the Journal noted was a potential violation of D.C. law.
As the agents approached the jail, witness Reid pulled out her cell phone to record the operation, and was immediately ordered to stop, video reviewed by the Journal revealed. She refused, and she was arrested and charged with felony assault and impeding.
However, when agents took Reid’s phone, placed it inside her bag and put the bag in a government vehicle, it continued to record — and captured what Reid characterized as a particularly damning conversation between the arresting agents.
“I have to return to 1d and process this stupid female,” said federal officer Dinko Residovic, the officer who arrested Reid, as heard in the secret video recording.
What the arresting agents discussed next, Reid argued, was what helped her avoid a potentially lengthy prison sentence on a felony assault charge.
“In another part of the recording, agents went back and forth about exactly how Reid, a veterinary assistant at an animal hospital, had assaulted them,” the Journal’s report reads. “First, it was a raised knee, then an elbow. The next day, Reid was accused in a criminal complaint of ‘forcefully’ pushing an agent’s hand against a cement wall.”
Reid’s recording was submitted as evidence in her trial, where three grand juries ultimately declined to indict her. She was also later acquitted after prosecutors reduced the charge to a misdemeanor.