Indictment Over Disruption of Minneapolis Church Service Unsealed

The indictment (in U.S. v. Levy-Armstrong) is here. The allegations are that defendants violated 18 U.S.C. § 241 which in relevant part makes it a crime to

conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person … in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution

and 18 U.S.C. § 248(a)(2), which in relevant part makes it a crime to

by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.

(Section 248(a)(1), the most commonly used part of the same statute, prohibits the same as to “obtaining or providing reproductive health services”; the statute is called the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, but it has always covered both abortion clinics and places of worship.)

Here is the heart of the allegations about what happened at the church. I will blog separately about how the indictment bears on Don Lemon (the former long-time CNN reporter) who livestreamed the event:

Overt Act# 12: Continuing on the morning of January 18, 2026, all of the defendants, together with other co-conspirators, entered the Church sanctuary, with the first wave positioning themselves among the congregants and the second wave, led by defendants ARMSTRONG and ALLEN, commencing the disruptive takeover operation, in which the first wave of agitators then actively joined.

Overt Act# 13: As the pastor was beginning his sermon, defendant ARMSTRONG interrupted the service with loud declarations about the Church harboring a “Director of ICE” and indicating that the time for Judgment had come, and other co-conspirators immediately joined in by yelling and blowing whistles in a takeover attack on the Church, all of which quickly caused the situation in the Church to become chaotic, menacing, and traumatizing to Church members.

Overt Act# 14: While inside the Church, defendants ARMSTRONG, ALLEN, KELLY, RICHARDSON, LUNDY, CREWS, and AUSTIN and others led and/or joined with their co-conspirators in various chants, including “ICE Out!,” “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!,” and “Stand Up, Fight Back!,” while gesturing in an aggressive and hostile manner, which congregants and the pastor perceived as threats of violence and a potential prelude to a mass shooting.

Overt Act# 15: While inside the Church, defendants ARMSTRONG, ALLEN, KELLY, LEMON, RICHARDSON, LUNDY, CREWS, FORT, and AUSTIN oppressed, threatened, and intimidated the Church’s congregants and pastors by physically occupying most of the main aisle and rows of chairs near the front of the Church, engaging in menacing and threatening behavior, (for some) chanting and yelling loudly at the pastor and congregants, and/or physically obstructing them as they attempted to exit and/or move about within the Church.

Overt Act# 16: While inside the Church, defendant AUSTIN stood with other agitators in and around the main aisles in the Church to intimidate the Church members and obstruct and interfere with their freedom of movement, approached the pastor and congregants in a menacing manner, and, near the end of the operation, loudly berated the pastor with questions about Christian nationalism and Christians wanting to have their faith be the law of the land.

Overt Act# 17: While inside the Church, defendant LUNDY personally participated in the disruptive takeover operation with other defendants by standing in the main aisle with the others and contributing to the physical obstruction and intimidation of the congregants, participating loudly in some of the chants (e.g., one saying that the targeted ICE agent must be “Out! Out!”), and punching his fist in the air.

Overt Act# 18: While inside the Church, defendant CREWS personally participated in the disruptive takeover operation with other defendants by standing in and around the main aisle with the others and contributing to the physical obstruction and intimidation of the congregants and participating in some of the chants.

Overt Act# 19: While inside the Church, defendant KELLY (a) disrupted the service by chanting, “This ain’t God’s house. This is the house of the devil.”; (b) approached one female congregant, who was with two young children, and demanded to know in a hostile manner why she was not involved in and supportive of the takeover operation; and (c) screamed “Nazi” in congregants’ faces and asked child congregants, “Do you know your parents are Nazis? They’re going to burn in hell.”

Overt Act# 20: Defendant LEMON told his livestream audience about congregants leaving the Church and about a “young man” who LEMON could see was “frightened,” “scared,” and “crying,” and LEMON observed that the congregants’ reactions were understandable because the experience was “traumatic and uncomfortable,” which he said was the purpose….

Overt Act# 23: With other co-conspirators standing nearby, defendants LEMON, RICHARDSON, and FORT approached the pastor and largely surrounded him (to his front and both sides), stood in close proximity to the pastor in an attempt to oppress and intimidate him, and physically obstructed his freedom of movement while LEMON peppered him with questions to promote the operation’s message.

Overt Act# 24: While talking with the pastor, defendant LEMON stood so close to the pastor that LEMON caused the pastor’s right hand to graze LEMON, who then admonished the pastor, “Please don’t push me.”

Overt Act# 25: Although the pastor told defendant LEMON and the others to leave the Church, defendant LEMON and the other defendants ignored the pastor’s request and did not immediately leave the Church.

Overt Act# 26: After causing most of the congregants to flee, some of the defendants and other agitators engaged in a chant proclaiming, “Who shut this down? We shut this down!”

Overt Act# 27: As one congregant reported to responding police officers, some of the agitators blocked the stairs leading to the Church’s childcare area and made it difficult and hazardous for parents to retrieve their children, causing some to take alternative routes in or around the Church.

Naturally, the First Amendment offers no defense to charges that one has conspired to physically obstruct worship services by shouting them down on the church’s property—just as it offers no defense to charges that one has conspired to hold a demonstration inside an abortion clinic’s operating rooms. And of course this would equally apply to right-wing protesters who might want to interrupt a service at a mosque, to anti-Semitic protesters who might want to interrupt a service at a synagogue, or whoever else.

On the other hand, the charge do require (to oversimplify) a showing that each defendant conspired with the others to engage in the obstruction, or (as to § 248(a)(2)) that each defendant either personally participated in the obstruction or acted as an accomplice or a coconspirator. I take it that Don Lemon’s defense would be that he wasn’t a coconspirator who had expressly or implicitly agreed with the others to commit an unlawful act (the essence of criminal conspiracy), but rather just a journalist who was there to document what happened for his own and his viewers’ purposes. More on that in a separate post.