Judge declines to detain man who encountered ICE after crashing van in Springfield
SPRINGFIELD — Noting that her decision opens the door for his removal from the country, Magistrate Judge Katherine Robertson declined to detain a Guatemalan who caught the attention of immigration officials after he crashed a van in Springfield.
"Defendant has virtually no prospect of avoiding the undisputed ICE Warrant of Removal that applies to him," Robertson wrote in her decision.
Noe Ambrocio-Perez struck a pole along Walnut Street in May, an incident witnessed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who called 911. The ICE officer detained Ambrocio-Perez until Springfield police arrived and discovered a half-empty container of cold beer in the van.
Weeks later, ICE officers detained Ambrocio-Perez in Springfield. Federal prosecutors charged him with illegal reentry because they said he had entered the country after he was convicted of a prior illegal reentry charge. Ambrocio-Perez has pleaded not guilty.
Ambrocio-Perez's case is one of thousands of illegal reentry cases filed across the country as part of the Trump administration's stepped-up immigration enforcement. From Jan. 26 to July 9, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts filed 103 illegal reentry cases in the state, a charge that carries the maximum penalty of up to two years in prison. This week, a Guatemalan who pleaded guilty to illegal reentry and possessing a forged immigration document was sentenced to time served by a federal judge in Springfield.
After prosecutors filed their criminal complaint against Ambrocio-Perez at the beginning of July, Robertson faced an initiafl question: Should he remain detained while the case worked its way through the court?
A similar situation recently played out in another illegal reentry case before the judge.
In March, ICE officials arrested Jose Mendoza-Zarrate, a Mexican national, in West Springfield after they encountered him riding in a truck as they sought to detain another person. Because immigration officials previously deported Mendoza-Zarrate in 2006 and twice in 2007, prosecutors charged him with illegal reentry.
Robertson declined to order Mendoza-Zarrate detained on July 2, saying it appeared he was not a flight risk. It led to the end of his case.
On Aug. 6, prosecutor Todd Newhouse asked the court to dismiss the indictment against Mendoza-Zarrate. The "defendant has been removed from the United States, and this dismissal is in the interests of justice," Newhouse wrote.
Ambrocio-Perez made his initial appearance before Robertson on July 15. He listened to an interpreter through headphones as Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Breslow argued for why he should remain detained. At the time, ICE housed Ambrocio-Perez at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility.
In briefing filed with the court after the hearing, Breslow said Ambrocio-Perez was a danger to the community because he had a history of abusing alcohol and getting behind the wheel while intoxicated. In 2013, immigration officials ordered his removal in absentia after he failed to appear, he said. Furthermore, Mendoza-Zarrate faced a shorter prison term than Ambrocio-Perez, who has an incentive to flee the charges, Breslow wrote.
Meanwhile, Ambrocio-Perez's appointed attorney William O'Neil argued that the law doesn't permit a court to hold a person just because ICE lodged a detainer or because of their immigration status.
O'Neil wrote in his brief to the court that in the 2023 fiscal year, federal prosecutors filed almost 13,000 illegal reentry cases, making up almost a fifth of the federal criminal docket nationally.
"Congress chose not to create a presumption of pretrial detention for these thousands of people annually facing one of the least serious felony charges available in the federal system," O'Neil wrote.
In her Aug. 7 decision, Robertson said the factors whether Ambrocio-Perez was a flight risk "are close to equipoise."
Ambrocio-Perez has a son and a cousin in Springfield, Robertson noted. His parents, many of his siblings and two of his children live in Guatemala, she wrote, but he once argued unsuccessfully before an immigration court that he feared torture if he returned to the country.
Robertson wrote Ambrocio-Perez appears to have used aliases over the years, and he also appears to be able to move around the country because he was arrested in other states such as Florida.
"Nonetheless, what is clear in this case is that there is no prospect that, if the court declines to order pretrial detention for Defendant, he will be released and able to flee the jurisdiction," Robertson wrote.
According to ICE records, Ambrocio-Perez was moved and is currently housed at the Wyatt Detention Center in Rhode Island.
West Springfield resident sentenced to time served
On Wednesday, Judge Mark Mastroianni sentenced Jose Martinez-Lopez, aka Amalio Mendez-Molina, to time served, a period totaling 163 days, after he pleaded guilty to illegal reentry and possessing a false resident alien identification card. He will now face deportation, said a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for Massachusetts.
Immigration officers detained Martinez-Lopez as he left Springfield District Court in March following his arraignment on charges of disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and assault of three police officers, all misdemeanors. After the owner of a West Springfield liquor store refused to sell him a case of Heineken, Martinez-Lopez, who appeared intoxicated, began breaking things in the store, according to a police report of the incident.
Federal prosecutors said Martinez-Lopez unlawfully reentered the country four times, was charged in Illinois with domestic battery, and was convicted of human smuggling in Arizona.
Calling him "a clear recidivist," Breslow asked Mastroianni to sentence Martinez-Lopez to zero to six months.
However, the charges filed in Springfield District Court — including the assault charges — were dismissed by prosecutors on Aug. 11, Martinez-Lopez's attorney, Charles Dolan, told the court. His client's criminal record "is not overly extensive," and he faces deportation to Guatemala, where he grew up working on a family farm and where the average daily wage is around $3 to $4 a day, Dolan said.
He asked that his client be sentenced to time served.
more news from Western Massachusetts
Read the original article on MassLive .
