Former CNN journalist Don Lemon pleads not guilty to charges in Minnesota church incident
Former CNN journalist Don Lemon pleaded not guilty on Friday to federal civil rights charges in connection with an incident in which anti-ICE protesters disrupted a service at a Minnesota church.
Lemon appeared in federal court in St. Paul before Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko, following his arrest in Los Angeles last month.
A crowd of demonstrators gathered outside the courthouse during the hearing, shouting, "Protect the press!"
Lemon was charged with conspiracy against rights of religious freedom and an attempt to injure while exercising religious freedom in the two-count indictment. Eight others were also charged in the federal indictment. Several of the other defendants also pleaded not guilty in court on Friday, including prominent local activist Nekima Levy Armstrong.
Speaking outside the federal courthouse on Friday, Lemon said, "I will not be intimidated, I will not back down, I will fight these baseless charges and I will not be silent."
Micko had previously rejected arrest warrants targeting Lemon and his producer, court filings show. The magistrate judge last month had issued arrest warrants for three people involved in the incident, though found that there was not probable cause to issue arrest warrants for the other five, including Lemon and his producer, according to the filings.
Judge Patrick Schiltz, chief of the federal district court in Minnesota, further resisted the Department of Justice's urgent push for the arrest warrants following the magistrate judge's refusal to sign them, writing to a federal appeals court on Jan. 23 that the two were "not protesters at all" and that "[t]here is no evidence that those two engaged in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so."
Schiltz suggested in another letter to the appeals court that the DOJ could either "improve the affidavit and present it again to the same magistrate judge or it can present its case to a grand jury and seek an indictment."
Lemon was subsequently charged in the two-count indictment filed on Jan. 29 and arrested the following day.
Former Minnesota U.S. attorney Joe Thompson, who resigned from the office last month, is representing Lemon in the case, court records show.
The incident unfolded on Jan. 18, when protesters entered Cities Church in St. Paul. The protesters said one of the pastors is the acting field director of the St. Paul ICE field office. Protesters were heard chanting "Justice for Renee Good" inside the church, referencing the woman fatally shot by a federal agent in Minneapolis in early January.
The indictment alleges that the nine defendants "oppressed, threatened, and intimidated the Church's congregants and pastors" by occupying space in the main aisle and rows of chairs near the front of the church and engaged in "menacing and threatening behavior."
It further alleges that Lemon "physically obstructed" congregants as they tried to leave the church.
The indictment, which includes multiple references to Lemon's video of the incident, alleges that the journalist told viewers that the whole point was to disrupt operations.
Lemon was at the protest as an independent journalist, he said. Lemon posted video to his Instagram on Jan. 18 showing protesters yelling as well as his interviews with churchgoers and protesters. Lemon said on the video, "We're not part of the activists, but we're here just reporting on them."
Lemon was taken into custody by federal agents while he was covering the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, according to his attorney, Abbe Lowell.
Following a bail hearing in Los Angeles last month, where he was released on his own recognizance, Lemon said he was arrested for "something that I've been doing for the last 30 years, and that is covering the news," and vowed to not stop that work.
"The First Amendment of the Constitution protects that work for me and for countless of other journalists who do what I do," he said. "I stand with all of them, and I will not be silenced. I look forward to my day in court."
Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social media that Lemon, Minnesota-based journalist Georgia Fort and two others were arrested on Jan. 30 "at my direction."
Fort has not yet entered a formal plea and is set to be arraigned next week. She told ABC News' Linsey Davis she was at the church protest doing her job as a journalist.
"I'm a journalist. I documented what happened that day," Fort said. "And the only way that the public is aware of what happened that day is because you had dedicated journalists who filmed it, who documented what happened."
At least three additional people were previously arrested in connection with the protest, with Bondi saying on social media at the time, "WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON PLACES OF WORSHIP."
ABC News' Luke Barr and Steven Portnoy contributed to this report.
