Two Utah Court Clerks Allegedly Ran an Escape Route for Illegal Aliens. Then Flipped Off the Camera.

On April 9, 2026, an ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officer walked into the Logan City Municipal Justice Court in northern Utah with an administrative warrant to arrest a man on immigration charges. According to a federal indictment unsealed June 10, two clerks working that courthouse saw it happen — and, prosecutors allege, decided to make sure ICE left empty-handed.

Federal prosecutors say Jennifer Joma, 27, and Lauren Kelsey Morrow, 26, both of Logan, improperly accessed court databases to determine the immigration status of people on the docket, identified multiple non-citizens, intercepted them before they could leave, and walked them out a back maintenance door — out of ICE’s line of sight. Joma then allegedly loaded three of them into her personal car and drove them away from the courthouse before returning to her shift.

It is, almost beat for beat, the playbook former Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan (D)was convicted of running a year earlier — a felony for ushering an illegal immigrant out a side door to evade ICE in her own courthouse. Joma and Morrow have pleaded not guilty and are presumed innocent. What sets their case apart, according to the indictment, is what surveillance allegedly caught them doing afterward: waving and smiling at the camera, with Morrow raising her middle finger.

• 4 federal counts — against Joma (conspiracy to transport and harbor, harboring, transporting, and obstruction); 3 against Morrow (all but transporting) · Source: DOJ, District of Utah
• 3 illegal aliens — Joma allegedly drove away from the courthouse in her personal vehicle on a second trip while ICE waited out front · Source: KSL, DOJ
• April 9 → June 10 — from the alleged courthouse evasion to the unsealing of the indictment; the clerks pleaded not guilty June 11 and were released pending trial · Source: ABC4, Deseret News
• Aug. 18, 2026 — tentative trial date set in U.S. District Court for the District of Utah; case prosecuted by AUSA Todd Bouton, investigated by Homeland Security Investigations · Source: ABC4, DOJ

The charging document tells a tight, same-day story. On April 9, 2026, an ICE-ERO officer entered the Logan City Municipal Justice Court to arrest a man for whom the agency held an administrative warrant; the man was at the courthouse for an unrelated hearing. Court staff alerted Joma and Morrowthat ICE was in the building. From there, prosecutors allege, the two clerks went looking — not for a way to comply, but for everyone on the docket who might be a target.

According to the indictment, they improperly accessed court databases to determine who was not born in the United States, identified several non-citizens, and intercepted them before they could walk out the front. They then allegedly led at least one of them — and, per the government’s account, others — through a secure area, down several hallways, and out a back maintenance door where the waiting ICE officer could not see them. On a second trip, the indictment says, Joma drove three of the individuals away from the courthouse in her own vehicle, then came back to finish her shift.

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Both women were indicted June 3 and arrested when the indictment was unsealed June 10. Each faces a count of conspiracy to transport and harbor illegal aliens, a count of harboring illegal aliens (8 U.S.C. § 1324), and a count of obstruction of proceedings before departments and agencies— the obstruction-of-immigration-proceedings count at the heart of the “Hannah Dugan” comparison. Joma alone faces a fourth count, transporting illegal aliens, tied to the alleged drive-away in her personal car.

The case was announced by U.S. Attorney Melissa Holyoak (R) of the District of Utah, is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Bouton, and was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations. As the Justice Department notes in its release, an indictment is merely an allegation, and both defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

“After learning ICE was at the courthouse, the defendants improperly accessed court databases to determine the immigration status of people listed on the court docket.”

U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Utah · indictment summary · June 2026

The reason this case landed nationally within hours is the precedent it echoes. In April 2025, Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan (D) learned ICE officers were in the hallway outside her courtroom waiting to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an illegal immigrant scheduled to appear before her. She called his case, abruptly rescheduled it, and ushered him and his lawyer out through the jury door into a private hallway — bypassing the agents. In December 2025, a federal jury convicted her of felony obstruction of federal agents (she was acquitted of a lesser misdemeanor concealment count).

Dugan faced up to five years and, under Wisconsin law, lost her eligibility to hold public office; a federal judge upheld the conviction in 2026 over her bid for a new trial, and her team signaled an appeal to the Seventh Circuit. The throughline is the same in Utah: court personnel, entrusted to run a neutral courthouse, allegedly using their access to that courthouse to defeat a lawful federal arrest. The Justice Department’s message in bringing both cases is that a courthouse badge is not a license to obstruct.

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What elevated the Utah case from a quiet local indictment to a national story is the detail prosecutors put on the record about the courthouse cameras. After allegedly leading one of the men out of the building, Morrow and Jomawere captured on a surveillance camera waving and smiling at it — and, the indictment says, Morrow used her middle finger in an obscene gesture toward the lens. It is the kind of detail that turns a charging document into a viral one: not a panicked lapse in judgment, but, as the government frames it, a knowing act the defendants treated lightly on camera.

Logan sits in Cache County, one of the most conservative corners of a deep-red state — a reminder that the “Hannah Dugan” pattern is not about which party runs a town, but about individual officials inside the justice system deciding, case by case, to put themselves between ICE and a lawful arrest. Both former clerks no longer work for the court. They are presumed innocent; the camera footage and the database logs will be the government’s to prove at trial.

Joma and Morrow pleaded not guilty at their initial appearance on June 11 and were released on pre-trial conditions, with a tentative trial date set for August 18, 2026. Their defense has not yet laid out its theory in filings, but the contours of an obstruction defense are predictable from the Dugan trial: that the clerks were performing ordinary administrative duties, that walking people through a courthouse is not inherently criminal, and that the government must prove a specific intent to obstruct a federal proceeding — not merely that ICE went home without its target.

The government’s counter is built into the facts it chose to allege: that the clerks reached into court databases they had no proper reason to query, sorted people by national origin, routed them through a non-public maintenance exit, and that one of them drove the targets off-site. Intent is the whole ballgame in an obstruction case, and the indictment is plainly written to show it. As with Dugan, a jury — not a press release — will decide whether the government has met that burden.

Courthouses have become a flashpoint precisely because they are where the system and its targets predictably meet: an immigrant with a pending case has to show up, and ICE knows it. That has made the courthouse arrest a recurring fight — sanctuary jurisdictions have tried to bar ICE from courthouses by policy, while the Justice Department has answered the most direct interference, like Dugan’s and now Logan’s, with criminal charges. The Utah case is the clearest signal yet that the obstruction theory is not a one-off aimed at a single celebrity judge.

For now the record is narrow and verifiable: two former clerks, four and three federal counts, a back door, a personal car, a surveillance camera, and a trial date in August. Whether the gestures on that footage become evidence of criminal intent or merely bad judgment is the question a Utah jury will answer. We will update this page as the case moves toward trial.

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Last updated June 12, 2026