The DC ‘Sandwich Guy’ Speaks In Exclusive Interview | EUROtoday

Sean Dunn walked out of federal courtroom Thursday relieved he not confronted the potential for jail time. Better generally known as the D.C. “Sandwich Guy,” the 37-year-old was discovered not responsible by a jury of assaulting a U.S. Border Patrol agent together with his now-famous submarine toss.

But Dunn continues to be wrestling with all the eye from his arrest and trial, and the information that he altered his future with a viral second of protest.

“The artwork, the memes – I’m glad that I could inspire people,” Dunn advised HuffPost in his first interview following his acquittal. “I’m not comfortable with the ‘hero’ narrative. And it’s been… honestly, it’s been uncomfortable for me. All the attention has made me uncomfortable.”

Dunn, an Air Force veteran, is soft-spoken and describes himself as a non-public individual — fairly totally different from the man who was shouting “fascist” and “shame” at a bunch of federal brokers earlier than bouncing a Subway footlong off the chest of Gregory Lairmore, a Border Patrol division chief. For context, the incident occurred at 11 p.m. on a Sunday in D.C.’s U Street NW nightlife hall, close to an LGBTQ+ membership that was internet hosting a Latin evening.

Phone footage of the encounter was already exploding on social media as Dunn was being held at a Metropolitan Police Department station. He was arraigned in Superior Court the next day earlier than being launched and returning to his D.C. residence. Then issues began to get surreal.

That Wednesday evening, a squadron of federal brokers descended on Dunn’s residence constructing, wanting armed for battle.

“I knew they might be coming,” Dunn recalled. “I had talked with [my lawyer] and she was going to arrange for me to surrender myself. But it was getting late, we hadn’t heard back, and I was worried they might be coming. When I got the knock on my door, I knew it was them.”

Dunn stated he advised the brokers by the closed door that he needed to name his legal professional, however they didn’t let him.

“The door opened and they had rifles drawn, pointed at me, with riot shields,” he stated. “They had gotten a key from the building manager, so they didn’t actually break down the door. It was frightening when it was occurring. And of course I didn’t resist.”

Dunn didn’t attain his legal professional till the next day.

Then the White House posted a slickly produced promotional video of Dunn’s re-arrest on social mediapresumably funded by taxpayer {dollars}. Dunn and his legal professional understood why he was by no means in a position to give up himself.

Pam Bondi, President Donald Trump’s legal professional basic, issued a gleeful assertion saying Dunn was charged with felony assault of a federal agent, which carries as much as eight years in jail. She additionally stated he’d been fired from his job as a Justice Department paralegal, calling Dunn “an example of the Deep State we have been up against.”

“It was very uncomfortable to have the attorney general and the [U.S.] attorney making statements about me,” Dunn stated. “When you have such powerful people speaking about you personally, it’s very frightening.”

Without a job, Dunn couldn’t afford to pay a high-priced legal professional out of pocket. His lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, represents indigent shoppers assigned to her in federal courtroom; she dealt with the case and not using a payment. Julia Gatto and Nicholas Silverman, attorneys on the large legislation agency Steptoe, supplied help professional bono. “Thanks goodness,” Dunn stated of his authorized crew.

Because he was fired for trigger, Dunn has not been receiving unemployment advantages. Friends launched a GoFundMe (“Help support the Sandwich Guy”) on his behalf.

Dunn’s sandwich toss preceded Trump’s takeover of policing in Washington by a matter of hours. As masked immigration officers started roaming town and snatching up immigrants, Dunn’s second of comical defiance gave a raise to progressives who felt as if every thing was coming unmoored. It additionally supplied journalists and Dunn supporters with a seemingly limitless properly of puns.

Seeing the road artwork boosted Dunn in flip.

“If I could inspire people and give them hope, that’s great,” he stated.

Jeanine Pirro, Trump’s U.S. Attorney for D.C., downgraded the cost to a misdemeanor after a grand jury declined to return an indictment on the felony — one in all a number of repudiations D.C. jurors have delivered Pirro throughout Trump’s D.C. crackdown. But prosecutors stored Dunn’s case in federal courtroom, and the potential for as much as a 12 months in jail nonetheless loomed over him.

The seriousness of the state of affairs helped him stay stone-faced by some absurd courtroom proceedings.

Lairmore, a federal agent for 23 years, testified on cross-examination that the sandwich “kind of exploded” upon affect, and that he felt it by his ballistic vest. He couldn’t testify to what sort of sandwich it was, however maintained that he “could smell the onions and mustard,” prompting a snort from an observer within the gallery.

The protection crew confirmed a photograph through which the offending sandwich seemed to be largely intact in its Subway wrapper — an obvious contradiction that Shroff highlighted in her closing argument.

She advised the jury that the case was finally “about a sandwich.”

“A sandwich that, according to agent Lairmore, somehow both exploded on his chest in a spray of onions and mustard, but also landed intact on the ground still in its Subway wrapping,” she stated.

After the decision, Dunn gave a press release to the press, went house to his residence and known as his mom, his aunt and an previous supervisor who’d been following the case.

“I’m ready to move on,” he stated.

Despite his acquittal, the ordeal has come at a steep private value. Dunn hoped to sooner or later retire from the federal authorities with an excellent pension. He had accrued three years with the U.S. Forest Service and practically one other three on the Justice Department. His 5 years within the Air Force included a deployment to Kandahar, Afghanistan, from July 2010 to January 2011.

“It makes my future very uncertain,” Dunn stated. “It was feeling a little less certain anyway with so many layoffs of federal employees. But I had a total of more than 10 years of federal service, so I was expecting to someday retire from federal service. And to suddenly have that all taken away, I’m still processing it and navigating. I need to find a job.”

Dunn just isn’t gloating in regards to the verdict. Trump’s Justice Department has been smashing norms by pursuing prosecutions in opposition to the president’s critics. On his legal professional’s recommendation, Dunn didn’t wish to talk about the particulars of the sandwich incident or his pondering that evening. But he was prepared to reply one query that, in some way, was by no means resolved throughout the trial.

“It was turkey,” Dunn stated of the sandwich.

And sure, it got here with onions and mustard.