The texts told the story. In a message to a colleague two years after the raid, Swanson wrote that Stewart had destroyed his career over undocumented immigrants who should not have been there in the first place. In a group chat from four years earlier, he complained that the judge had cost the government millions because he cared more about procedure than security.
Then came a message sent 10 days before the Naperville parking-lot encounter, at 11:30 at night. Swanson wrote, “If I ever run into that old bastard Stewart again, he’s going to learn what it feels like to be on the other side of the cuffs.”
Discovery also uncovered statistical data from Swanson’s personnel file. Over a six-year period, he had conducted traffic stops and field interviews of Black motorists at a rate 2.7 times higher than the agency average. Complaints filed against him numbered 14.
Sustained findings: zero. Each complaint had been closed administratively without meaningful investigation. Thomas Brennan filed a motion to amend the complaint, adding claims for deliberate retaliation and racially motivated selective enforcement. The motion included the text messages as exhibits.
The union reviewed the evidence and declined to contest the termination. Agent Eric Swanson was fired for cause six weeks after the arrest. His appeal was denied within 10 days, and his law-enforcement certification was suspended pending further administrative review.
Agent Thomas Reed received a 30-day suspension without pay and mandatory retraining. Supervisory Special Agent Robert Klein was reassigned to administrative duties and placed on a performance-improvement plan.
The lawsuit settled on a Friday afternoon in late January. The Department of Homeland Security agreed to pay $850,000 with no admission of liability, but with a stipulation that the payment represented compensation for constitutional violations. The settlement agreement included a confidentiality clause, but Judge Stewart waived his portion, allowing the terms to become public record.
He donated the entire amount within 72 hours. Four hundred twenty-five thousand dollars went to the National Legal Defense Fund for Elderly Citizens, an organization providing free representation to senior citizens of color facing unlawful detention, police misconduct, and housing discrimination. The remaining $425,000 went to the Immigrant Justice Project, a nonprofit defending families separated during immigration-enforcement operations.