Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt called a press conference Friday to push back against reports about a U.S. citizen who claimed last month that she was detained by federal immigration agents and held at the Dodge County Jail. Schmidt announced he is filing a civil lawsuit against the woman who made the allegations, saying, “it is important that we correct the facts, so today we’re here to talk about the fact vs. the fiction in the Sundas Naqvi allegations that were made.”
In early March, Naqvi, 28, of Skokie, Illinois, claimed that she and her co-workers had been detained by federal immigration authorities at the O’Hare airport in Chicago after returning from a work trip abroad. Naqvi’s family and Kevin Morrison, a Cook County commissioner, said that Naqvi had been taken to the Broadview Detention Facility and was then transferred across state lines to the Dodge County Jail, then released without aid or transportation in the pre-dawn hours.
Schmidt said during his press conference Friday that these allegations are false. “They gained significant attention, but they have not been supported by any — any — verified evidence at all,” he said. Schmidt noted that Morrison, a candidate in the Democratic primary for a U.S. House seat, held a press conference to air the Naqvi allegations in the leadup to a the election, which he lost.
Naqvi’s alleged detention took place against a backdrop of news reports and widespread public outrage over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, which targeted Chicago and Minneapolis.
Research conducted by the Deportation Data Project found that 1,300 arrests made by federal immigration agents were listed as “collateral,” meaning they were not the intended targets of the enforcement, the Minnesota Reformer reported. The Dodge County Sheriff’s Office has also been criticized for assisting in detaining and transporting people arrested by federal immigration agents.
Schmidt said that the initial claims about Naqvi’s arrest were “coordinated messaging designed to generate outrage and media attention.” He showed a picture posted to social media showing Naqvi being reunited with her family after her alleged detention.
Schmidt said that there “is no record of booking, there is no record of detention, there is no record of release, no contact with the individual, no transfer to any federal agency.” He also blasted media outlets that covered Naqvi’s allegations as factual, repeatedly saying those kinds of stories hurt the reputation of law enforcement.
“Media coverage has impacts,” said Schmidt. “What you publish has impacts on more than just those readers and viewers. It has impacts on real human beings.” Schmidt showed hate mail the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office received after the Naqvi allegations surfaced, and revealed the names of the people who sent the messages. “These are the types of things that we as elected officials, that public officials get when media put out information that is not verified. And many times, it’s false information that goes out and we get these regularly. And I don’t think that the media understand the impact that these kinds of stories have on real people every single day.”
Schmidt stated that Naqvi had been briefly detained by Customs and Border Protection until 11:42 a.m. at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, after which she left and checked in at a Hampton Inn and Suites hotel in Illinois at 1:17 p.m, just minutes from the airport. While investigating the allegations, Schmidt made contact with a man he calls both a witness and a victim, who provided corroborating evidence refuting Naqvi’s story.
The witness — who Schmidt refused to identify citing Marsy’s Law — allegedly received texts from Naqvi telling him that she’d arrived to her hotel room, and asking to use his credit card to buy some food. Records from the hotel confirm when Naqvi checked in, and that she was not at the Dodge County Jail when she claimed. Naqvi also asked to use the witness’s card to pay for a spa treatment during this time. “Now I don’t know about you, and my staff have never recorded one, there is no spa at Broadview in Chicago Illinois,” said Schmidt. “I can also tell you there is no spa lady in our jail here in Dodge County.”
Schmidt said that on the morning Naqvi claimed she was released from custody, she’d actually asked the witness to drive her to Wisconsin to help her sister with car trouble. The witness allegedly told Schmidt in a recorded interview that he thought she was going to the Kenosha area, but it turned out Naqvi wanted to go to another hotel in Beaver Dam. Schmidt showed images and played video of Naqvi at a gas station with the witness, wearing the same striped black and white shirt she wore in a social media post that purportedly showed her being reunited with her family. Schmidt called the witness “a true gentleman” for holding the door open for Naqvi as they left the gas station.
It was around this time, Schmidt said, well-past 5:00 in the morning, that Naqvi claimed she was being released from the Dodge County Jail. The witness’s vehicle was also captured by several Flock cameras along the journey, Schmidt said. The sheriff wanted to check whether the timeline of events he believed occurred tallied with what the witness was saying. “So I put those times into A.I. and I said ‘what time would he have left?’” The software’s results lined up with what the witness described, Schmidt said.
Later, Schmidt played video of Naqvi at another location taking selfies. At 6:50 a.m. on the morning she was allegedly released, Naqvi’s sister and others arrived in a silver SUV to pick her up. The unnamed witness told Schmidt that he was then asked by Naqvi to pose for media as one of the coworkers who allegedly went with her on the overseas work trip, and who were allegedly detained with her upon returning to the country. Schmidt said that none of this happened, and that the witness refused to make those claims to the media, but did claim to be one of the coworkers to Naqvi’s attorney.
Schmidt said that the witness paid for Naqvi’s trip to Turkey, and that the trip was not related to or paid for by an employer. In fact, later media coverage reported that the company where Naqvi claimed to work denied that she worked there. Schmidt said that while Naqvi was overseas, she wanted to get a medical procedure for which the witness took out a $3,000 loan. Schmidt said that Naqvi spent about $25,000 of the witness’ money, maxing out his credit card. The witness did all of this, Schmidt said, because he believed he might be able to have a long term relationship with Naqvi.
The sheriff also discounted the images of Naqvi’s phone location showing her at Broadview and Dodge County. “I’m here to tell you that in the world of A.I., in the world of technology that they live in, things like this can be spoofed very easy,” he said. “I could do it on my phone in only a matter of minutes.” Schmidt noted that one of the screenshot images actually had two different time stamps. Schmidt also highlighted Naqvi’s past disputed allegations, including an accusation of sexual misconduct against a professor that the professor denied.
In 2019, Schmidt said, Naqvi made a report to the Skokie police that she was violently sexually assaulted. Although officers observed injuries, took forensic evidence and arrested an ex-boyfriend of Naqvi’s, they later determined the report was false, Schmidt said. Another 2020 report with the Skokie police made by Naqvi accused a driver of being impaired in a Walmart parking lot. The driver showed no signs of impairment, and claimed he met Naqvi on a dating app and was waiting for her to come out of the Walmart. The report was classified as disorderly conduct and categorized as not made in good faith, Schmidt said.
Schmidt said he has not had any success getting other law enforcement agencies interested in following up on what he regards as Naqvi’s bad acts, none of which are likely to be charged as crimes in the state of Wisconsin. He added that he does not know the status of any investigation the FBI may be doing, and the state police he reached out to in Illinois never got back to him. Schmidt said that he was told by local law enforcement officers that while they would like to act, that they can’t because Cook County prosecutors don’t take on cases of this nature. Later, Schmidt claimed that upon hearing this the witness allegedly said “it sucks to live in a blue state.”
Schmidt is filing a lawsuit in an attempt to hold Naqvi and anyone else involved in her allegations accountable, he said. “This is not a misunderstanding or a minor discrepancy,” said Schmidt. “This is not a violation of the constitutional or civil rights of Sundas Naqvi or those allegedly with her. The timeline claimed is not physically possible based on the evidence that we have, and that matters.” He also condemned the media and politicians for spreading false reports, saying they damaged respect and trust in law enforcement.
“Let me be clear,” said Schmidt, “ICE is not the enemy. Law enforcement is not the enemy.” Schmidt said that he won’t stand by “while false narratives are used to portray law enforcement as something it is not.” He added, “I take it personally when my staff are called liars. These are men and women who do the job the right way every day and those accusations are simply not supported by facts.”
Schmidt said that a criminal investigation is ongoing, in addition to the federal civil lawsuit he’s filed, which seeks $1 million in damages. He wouldn’t comment on whether any phones were forensically downloaded as part of this investigation, which Schmidt said he used a lot of his own time to pursue.
In a statement provided over email, Morrison said that he understands that a lawsuit has been filed, and that while he has not seen it, he cannot comment on pending litigation. Morrison did not comment on whether he has been in contact with Naqvi or her family. The Examiner reached out to the office of attorney Robert Held, who represented Naqvi and her family when the allegations were first made, but no comment has been forthcoming.
