The federal prosecution of Timothy Shea in the “We Build the Wall” case continues to raise serious questions about judicial conduct, jury integrity, defense representation, and sentencing fairness following Shea’s 2023 conviction in the Southern District of New York.
Shea was indicted in August 2020 alongside Stephen Bannon, Brian Kolfage, and Andrew Badolato in connection with the nonprofit organization that raised private funds to construct sections of a border wall. Shea was listed fourth on the indictment and prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. The case was presided over by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres.
In January 2021, then-President Donald Trump pardoned Bannon, effectively removing him from federal prosecution. Shea, a Colorado resident who lives in Castle Rock with his wife of 20 years and their three children, ultimately became the only defendant from the original indictment to face trial and incarceration.
Mistrial and Concerns Over Judicial Impartiality
Shea’s first trial in 2022 ended in a mistrial after a week of testimony and more than a week of jury deliberations. Immediately after the jury was dismissed, Judge Torres stated from the bench that she was available the following week to retry the case.
Defense attorneys viewed the remark as improper, noting that the decision to retry a case rests solely with prosecutors, not the court. The comment, they argued, suggested a predisposition toward continuing the prosecution rather than maintaining judicial neutrality.
Several months later, Shea was retried and convicted. What followed intensified concerns about the integrity of the proceedings.
Hellbound and Down 