LA COURTHOUSE, July 15 – United States v.
Palermo is the federal case arising from the June 8, 2025
alleged attack on California Highway Patrol officers
trapped beneath the Main Street overpass on the 101
Freeway during Los Angeles's anti-ICE protests.
Prosecutors say the defendants lit
cardboard, vegetation, and fireworks on fire and dropped
them onto CHP vehicles below, setting one ablaze. A
Superseding Indictment in November 2025 brought the total
to nine defendants, all now before Judge John F. Walter.
Six defendants have pleaded guilty this
spring, including Roldan, to misdemeanor simple assault,
capped at one year. Sentencing is now underway case by
case, with real disagreement over the numbers — Roldan's
own sentencing memorandum seeks roughly 18 months'
equivalent relief, while DOJ has pressed for far longer
terms for co-defendants facing the felony counts.
On July 13, Roldan obtained a same-day
order sealing Exhibit C to his sentencing memorandum — no
public reasoning, no findings, nothing. Inner City Press
does not know what the exhibit contains and does not
speculate here.
What is known is the law, confirmed by Lee
v Greenwood in the Second Circuit: sentencing exhibits are
judicial documents at the heart of the presumption of
public access, because they help determine how long
someone goes to prison for a case that began with a
protest against federal immigration enforcement and ended
with a burning patrol car. Under Ninth Circuit precedent,
sealing requires compelling reasons and specific findings
— not silence, and not an unreasoned same-day order.
So Inner City Press has moved to intervene,
asking the Court to unseal the order and require a
redacted public version of the exhibit if genuine
sensitivities exist within it. The Court's system
confirmed receipt and, that evening, confirmed the filing
had moved into processing, whatever that means.
Inner City Press will report when the
motion appears on the docket, and what the Court does with
it. Watch this site.
