FBI: nurse told investigators she ‘was going to set him free’
Federal prosecutors have charged a Michigan nurse with a federal misdemeanor for helping an undocumented Mexican man escape from a hospital where he was being treated in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, according to court records unsealed this week. Chloe Renae Freeman, 33, who worked at Trinity Health Ann Arbor, is accused of removing the patient’s intravenous drip and guiding him out through the hospital’s ambulance bay doors on May 28, an FBI agent’s declaration says. The patient, identified only as “OBP” in court records, had been arrested about two hours earlier by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) border patrol agents and had not been located by the time Freeman was charged in August.
According to the FBI complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, CBP agents encountered the patient during a “targeted immigration enforcement operation” in Ann Arbor on May 28. When agents attempted to arrest him, he ran, tripped over a curb and struck his face on the pavement. Agents arrested him, noticed his injuries and called for an ambulance; EMS workers recommended he be taken to a hospital for treatment.
At Trinity Health Ann Arbor, medical staff noticed in the patient’s paperwork that he was in ICE custody, the complaint says. Staff took him to receive a CT scan for his injuries. After the scan, according to the FBI, Freeman entered the CT scan room, removed the patient’s intravenous drip and guided him to the ambulance bay entrance, from which he fled. Court records include security-camera images showing OBP exiting through the ambulance bay doors with a bandaged and bloody face.
In June, hospital investigators interviewed Freeman, who admitted to letting OBP leave the hospital, according to the complaint. She told the investigators she did not believe in ICE “separating people from their families” and acknowledged that, given his injuries, he “could have died.” The complaint also reports that Freeman said she “was going to set him free.”
The FBI says Freeman’s actions were “knowingly and willfully” taken to help OBP in “escaping the hospital without permission or authority,” the complaint states. The charge, “instigating or assisting escape,” is a federal misdemeanor. “Law enforcement have been unable to locate OBP since his escape from Trinity Health Ann Arbor Hospital,” the document adds.
The patient, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, had been previously removed from the United States in 2022 and appears to have re-entered the country without permission, according to authorities — itself a federal infraction.
Freeman was charged in August. She voluntarily surrendered to authorities and had her first hearing in federal court on Tuesday, when she was released on a $10,000 bond. Attorneys representing Freeman told the Guardian they were not making any public statements at the time.
In a statement to Reuters, Trinity Health said Freeman no longer worked for the hospital. Trinity Health did not respond to a Guardian request about the extent of its work with the FBI in this case. It remains unclear whether hospital investigators or the FBI initiated the case.
The U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Michigan, where Freeman’s case is being prosecuted, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and border patrol, referred questions to the Department of Justice.
The case is among several recent prosecutions of people for anti-ICE actions. In some cases, charges against protesters and anti-ICE advocates have fallen apart under scrutiny, while in others prosecutors have been successful in bringing cases against activists, according to the Guardian’s reporting.