Federal Indictment Targets Four New Defendants in University of Michigan Protest Campaign
Federal authorities filed an indictment Friday charging four additional individuals with participating in a criminal intimidation campaign directed at University of Michigan officials. The legal action expands an ongoing investigation into coordinated efforts to force the university to sever its financial ties to Israel.
Investigators state the campaign included placing fake bloody corpses in a university board member’s yard and spray-painting anti-Israel messages in 2024 at the home of Santa Ono, who was school president at the time. Two of the newly charged defendants were arrested and will make their first court appearance Friday while the other two people were not in custody, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit.
The indictment follows a previous round of charges filed in June against eight pro-Palestinian activists accused of conspiracy for threats and vandalism targeting official residences, local businesses, and the Jewish Federation of Detroit. All eight defendants from the June indictment have pleaded not guilty.
“From Pharaoh to Hitler to Hamas, those who terrorize Jews have been the bad guys. As Americans, our job is to fight the bad guys,” U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgon Jr. said.
Protesters have demanded that the university divest its endowment from companies with ties to Israel since the Israel-Hamas war began. University officials maintain that less than 0.1% of the total endowment is placed with funds that might include companies in Israel.
Defense attorneys representing pro-Palestinian activists previously criticized the federal prosecution strategy. John Philo of the Sugar Law Center in Detroit asserted that the federal government is seeking to bring federal charges for acts traditionally reserved to local prosecutors. University police also cleared a month-long pro-Palestinian camp on campus in 2024, citing it was a threat to public safety.
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