A Jacksonville woman who punched and kicked at law enforcement officers working with immigration agents will spend 15 months in prison, a federal judge said October 14.
"We just have to learn to control ourselves," Senior U.S. District Judge Harvey Schlesinger said after referencing remarks in the Federalist Papers about the challenges of self-regulation. If Americans hadn't learned that lesson, Schlesinger said, "we wouldn't have what we have today."
Jennifer Susan Cruz, 41, pleaded guilty in June to assaulting federal officers as well as people assisting them.
The charge carried a potential for a sentence as long as 20 years behind bars. People wanting mercy and accountability both delivered arguments for Schlesinger to weigh.
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Assistant U.S. Attorney Arnold "Chip" Corsmeier called Cruz's actions "a vicious attack, unprovoked, on law enforcement officers" and a Florida Highway Patrol trooper she injured told the judge she's still reckoning with harm from a fractured finger.
"I still can't even open a can," said Trooper Jessica Manganaro, who had earlier filed a written victim impact statement that described effects on both her and her family.
“What has been particularly difficult for me to process is that the person who battered me had absolutely nothing to do with the official business other State Troopers were conducting,” Manganaro wrote. "The defendant’s actions lasted only moments, but the consequences have lasted much longer."
Troopers were working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who were seeking immigrants in the country illegally when Cruz was arrested in January after an altercation in a parking lot along Beach Boulevard in the city’s Southside.
A trooper had stopped a pickup truck when Cruz pulled up behind him, holding up her phone to record the traffic stop and yelling at him, according to a case summary labeled a “factual basis” that was filed when Cruz pleaded guilty.
The summary said Cruz "asked the trooper whether he supported the 'Nazis,' which she clarified as referring to ICE, and asked him not to shoot her in the face."
The document said a second trooper approached Cruz about using her phone while driving, learned her driver’s license had been suspended since June 2025 and called for a tow truck to impound her vehicle.
Before the tow arrived, Cruz began to drive away but troopers boxed in her truck.
The summary said Cruz refused to hand over her keys, told the troopers she was ready to fight and, when a trooper tried to get the keys, Cruz “struck the victim trooper in the face with a closed fist,” leading to multiple officers surrounding her to arrest her.
As she struggled, officers carried Cruz to an FHP car, where she kicked at an ICE officer, a U.S. Customs and Broder Protection agent and a trooper, connecting with the first two, according to the summary. The summary said a trooper used a taser on Cruz but "did not subdue her."
Friends who sent letters vouching for Cruz's character said that just didn't sound like the person they know.
"When I became aware of the charges against Jennifer, I was baffled," said a letter from Jake McLaughlin, who works with Cruz at a dog-grooming and boarding business. Saying Cruz "regretted letting her passion and emotion take over momentarily," he wrote that "despite the current case, I still believe ... Cruz is an upstanding and honorable member of my community, and a great human being."
Her daughter's tennis coach, Devanne Jones, wrote about the Cruz he knew being "the first to volunteer for carpool, bring snacks, and chaperone" at tournaments. "I could not imagine her being in a situation that would lead to her being arrested," Jones said.
Cruz is still facing prosecution in state court, where a docket lists 14 separate charges, including three counts of battery on a law enforcement officer and three counts of resisting officers with violence.
Being prosecuted in two courts for one set of actions “is highly unusual,” defense attorney Alan Ceballos pointed out in his sentencing memo to the judge, describing "genuine, guileless remorse."
A state prosecutor had provided a sentencing scoresheet for the state charges suggesting a sentencing range between 13.725 months in prison and 16 years, the memo said.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: For fighting ICE, troopers, Jacksonville woman gets 15 months in prison
