The complaint targets an Illinois woman and a Cook County commissioner after weeks of dueling accounts about whether she was ever held at the Dodge County Jail.
JUNEAU, WI — Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt has sued an Illinois woman and a Cook County commissioner, alleging they falsely accused his office of helping hold a U.S. citizen for immigration detention after she passed through O’Hare International Airport in March.
Schmidt filed the lawsuit Friday in federal court in Milwaukee, turning a dispute that had played out through news conferences, television interviews and social media into a legal fight over reputation, politics and proof. The sheriff says Sundas “Sunny” Naqvi and Commissioner Kevin Morrison spread a false story that Naqvi was taken from Chicago to the Dodge County Jail, the only jail in Wisconsin that houses immigration detainees. Schmidt denies she was ever booked, detained or released there, and his complaint says the claims hurt him as he prepares for reelection in 2026.
According to the complaint, the dispute began after Naqvi returned to the United States on March 5 from Istanbul, Turkey. The filing says airport security video shows her entering a secondary inspection area at O’Hare at 10:46 a.m. and leaving for a public area at 11:42 a.m. The suit says that same day she checked into a Hampton Inn & Suites in Rosemont, Illinois, near the airport, and remained there until the afternoon of March 8. Schmidt said Friday that his office and other investigators reviewed hotel receipts, surveillance footage, text messages and camera data that, in his telling, show Naqvi was not in federal or county custody during the period when she and her supporters said she was being held. “Dodge County is not the place you want to make up a hoax about,” Schmidt said at a news conference.
The detention claim first spread publicly over the weekend of March 8 and 9, when Morrison, a family friend of Naqvi, stood outside the immigration facility in Broadview, Illinois, and described her as a U.S. citizen who had been detained for about 30 hours at O’Hare, moved to Broadview and then taken across state lines to Dodge County with five other people. Morrison later told a Milwaukee television station that officials had been “lying from the very start of this” and accused agencies of a cover-up. He also said Naqvi was released from the Dodge County facility around 5 a.m. March 7, walked to a nearby gas station and later reached a Holiday Inn in Beaver Dam. Schmidt’s lawsuit singles out those statements as defamatory. The complaint also alleges Morrison amplified the account through social media and interviews, helping drive statewide and national coverage. What remains unknown is why the conflicting versions became so stark so quickly, and whether either side will produce more records beyond the material already discussed publicly.
Federal and local officials pushed back almost immediately in March. A Department of Homeland Security statement said Naqvi arrived at O’Hare at 10:21 a.m. on March 5, was referred for additional inspection and a baggage exam, and left Customs and Border Protection within 90 minutes. The statement said she was not taken into custody and was not transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for detention. Schmidt issued his own statement on March 9 saying his office had no record that Naqvi had ever been booked, detained or released from the Dodge County Jail. He added that jail logs showed no female inmates or federal detainees were admitted or released during the time frame in question. Those records matter because Dodge County’s jail is the Wisconsin site used for immigration detention, making it central to the public claim and central to the sheriff’s denial. Schmidt has framed the records as objective proof, while Naqvi’s side had pointed earlier to screenshots that Morrison said reflected her phone location.
The lawsuit does not accuse Naqvi or Morrison of a crime. Instead, it makes two defamation claims, one against each defendant, and asks for actual and compensatory damages of more than $1 million against each of them, plus punitive damages, injunctive relief, attorney fees, litigation expenses and a jury trial. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin under diversity jurisdiction because Schmidt is a Wisconsin resident, the defendants are Illinois residents and the amount in controversy alleged exceeds $1 million per defendant. The complaint says the reputational injury occurred in Wisconsin and was especially damaging because Schmidt is seeking reelection this year. At Friday’s news conference, the sheriff said he could not bring Wisconsin criminal charges based on what he described as a disturbing falsehood, but he said he had referred the matter to other agencies. No criminal charge tied to the detention claim had been announced as of Saturday.
The fight has also drawn attention because of Naqvi’s earlier public allegations in unrelated matters, which local media outlets examined in the days before Schmidt sued. Those reports cited court and investigative records in which authorities or investigators had previously questioned her credibility, including a 2019 Illinois case that ended with a conviction for filing a false police report. Schmidt referenced that history as he argued the latest claim should not have been believed. Still, the current lawsuit will turn on the detention story itself, not on any earlier episode. Morrison, through a statement carried by Chicago television media, said it was his understanding a lawsuit had been filed but that he had not seen it and could not comment on pending litigation. Neither Naqvi nor her family publicly responded Friday to multiple media requests for comment. Their fuller legal position is likely to emerge only after they are served and respond in court.
For now, the public scene remains a sharp clash between a sheriff insisting records clear his office and political allies of Naqvi who earlier said government agencies had hidden what happened. The case arrives at a time of heightened tension over immigration enforcement, airport inspections and detention facilities in the Midwest, giving the dispute a reach well beyond Juneau, the Dodge County seat. But the central question in court is much narrower: whether Naqvi was ever inside the Dodge County Jail as an immigration detainee, and whether saying she was amounted to a false statement that unlawfully damaged Schmidt’s name. The next major step will come after the defendants are formally served and the court sets a schedule for their response.
Author note: Last updated April 11, 2026.