A person walks past Banksy-style posters of a protester throwing a sandwich on August 21, 2025 in Washington, DC.
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Federal prosecutors failed to obtain a grand jury indictment against a former Department of Justice employee who allegedly hurled a Subway sandwich at a federal officer who President Donald Trump had deployed in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. has sought to charge the man, Sean Charles Dunn, with felony assault of an officer for the Aug. 10 sub-chucking incident.
But prosecutors could not convince a grand jury to indict him, NBC News reported Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the matter.
It was the second time in recent days that a D.C. grand jury has rejected an indictment request by the office of U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host appointed by Trump.
It is not clear if prosecutors will try again to obtain an indictment of Dunn or lodge another charging instrument against him, known as an “information.”
It is extremely rare for a grand jury to decline to return an indictment when a prosecutor requests one after presenting evidence of an alleged crime.
And it is even rarer in a high-profile case that the government has touted in the media, as the DOJ did after Dunn’s arrest.
The DOJ and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Dunn’s lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, declined to comment when contacted by CNBC.
The New York Times first reported that the grand jury had not issued a “true bill,” meaning an indictment of Dunn.
The sandwich spat took place as Trump has clamped down on the nation’s capital to quickly eradicate what he claims is out-of-control crime in the city.
He invoked a never-before-used legal power to temporarily take over the D.C. police department and ordered a deployment of 800 National Guard members to the city. His administration also ramped up the presence of federal agents on the streets to assist in crime prevention.
Trump’s actions are unpopular among D.C. residents, according to recent polls, and activists have confronted or heckled federal officers while they are performing law-enforcement operations in the city.
On Monday, Pirro’s office told a judge in a separate criminal case that “an Indictment has not been returned” after “a third grand jury returned a no true bill.”
The admission means that Pirro failed at three separate attempts to secure an indictment in the case against Sydney Reid, who, like Dunn, is accused of assaulting a federal officer in D.C.
A special agent wrote in a court affidavit that Reid, in late July, had “forcefully pushed” an FBI agent’s hand against a cement wall.
Reid had started recording the agents outside of D.C.’s jail after two alleged gang members, who had been arrested by city police, were released into the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement due to their immigration status, the affidavit said.
After Reid tried to “impede the transfer” by getting between one suspect and the agents, ICE officer Vincent Laing pushed her “against the wall and told her to stop,” according to the court document.
FBI agent Eugenia Bates came to assist Laing and Reid, who was “flailing her arms and kicking,” caused “lacerations on the back side of Agent Bates’s left hand,” the affidavit said.
