ICE officers say officers at Newton District Courtroom blocked them from accessing a lock-up to detain an unlawful immigrant who ended up slipping out of the constructing’s again door, avoiding apprehension.
The revelation got here on the finish of a weeklong judicial misconduct listening to involving Massachusetts decide Shelley Joseph, who’s accused of orchestrating a scheme with a protection legal professional that allowed a Dominican nationwide, beforehand deported twice, to evade federal immigration authorities.
In statements submitted to Joseph’s protection workforce, two deportation officers with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement highlighted the strict circumstances they confronted on the courthouse on April 2, 2018, after they tried to detain Jose Medina-Perez.
Agent Richard Simmons arrived on the courthouse that morning with a detainer for Medina-Perez, charged with possessing cocaine in Newton and being a fugitive from justice on a warrant out of Pennsylvania.
A courtroom officer initially informed Simmons that he would be capable of acquire custody of Medina-Perez in a lock-up after an arraignment. That got here earlier than different officers, an assistant district legal professional, a clerk Justice of the Peace, and a protection legal professional turned conscious of the deportation officer’s presence and intent to detain the defendant.
Within the afternoon, earlier than Medina-Perez’s arraignment, a courtroom clerk alerted Simmons that Joseph had directed him to order the deportation officer to go away the courtroom, because the decide didn’t need anybody to be “intimidated” by ICE’s presence.
Simmons highlighted how he “never left the front lobby,” with the clerk assuring him that Medina-Perez can be launched after which introduced all the way down to the lock-up earlier than being escorted by a courtroom officer to the place the deportation officer had been ready.
Although Massachusetts Trial Courtroom coverage grants ICE brokers entry to lock-ups to take aliens into custody, Simmons argued he was “refused this opportunity.”
“The ADA came out some time later and stated to me she had a bad feeling that the subject was released out of the back of the building,” Simmons wrote of an interplay with Assistant District Lawyer Shannon McDermott.
“She based her feelings on a ‘look’ she got from the subject’s defense attorney,” he added.
Medina-Perez’s protection legal professional David Jellinek testified on Monday that he defined to Joseph throughout a 52-second off-the-record sidebar dialog – a dialogue central to the prosecution’s argument – that he hoped to get his shopper out of the courthouse with out encountering ICE.
The legal professional added that he knew courtroom officers used a door to simply accept prison defendants, and he informed the decide he would use that again door, together with her permission.
McDermott informed the courtroom on Tuesday that Joseph and Jellinek appeared to partake in what she referred to as a “misguided attempt to do what they thought was right.”
Deportation officer Domenico Frederico responded to Newton District Courtroom that afternoon at in regards to the time Joseph cleared Medina-Perez of his costs, releasing him on recognizance.
In his assertion, Frederico detailed how he turned “increasingly suspicious” that Medina-Perez was not in lock-up. After strolling to the rear of the constructing, he mentioned he seen a courtroom officer talking with correction officers.
“I explained to the court officer that we were waiting for our subject to be brought upstairs into the lobby so that we could take him into custody,” Frederico wrote. “The officer stated the name of the subject before I did … and very sarcastically said that he released him from the back door.”
“I asked why he did so, knowing that we were in the building with a detainer and warrant of arrest,” Frederico added. “The officer responded with an arrogant tone that he had just let him go from the back.”
Newton District Courtroom’s coverage of releasing defendants from the entrance of the constructing and never the lock-up violated courtroom guidelines, based on Michael McPherson, director of safety for the Massachusetts Trial Courts.
Joseph, who turned a decide in November 2017, testified on Thursday that she remembers requesting to proceed Medina-Perez’s case to the following day, permitting Jellinek extra time to analyze a priority of whether or not his shopper’s id matched the Pennsylvania warrant.
Jellinek declined the request, and Joseph admitted that she didn’t make any try to carry the defendant over the legal professional’s objection and ordered Medina-Perez launched on recognizance.
Joseph mentioned Medina-Perez’s slip-away got here as a shock when she realized about it two days after she presided over the defendant’s case. She added that she “had no intent to help the defense attorney with his plan” for the unlawful alien to flee.
The feds initially charged Joseph with perjury and obstructing justice. The Biden administration dismissed these offenses in 2022 as a part of an settlement with Joseph, which included circumstances requiring her to undergo the scrutiny of the state Fee for Judicial Conduct.
The fee final 12 months pressed civil costs towards Joseph for “willful judicial misconduct that brought the judicial office into disrepute” and “conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice and unbecoming of a judicial officer.”
Joseph admitted to going off the report for practically a minute through the sidebar dialog with Medina-Perez’s protection legal professional however argued nothing of substance got here out of the dialogue.
A handful of former judges referred to as to the stand through the protection’s presentation on Friday mentioned they’d commonly go off the report, defying courtroom procedures. They argued the secretive sidebar conversations by no means hindered authorized proceedings
“We may debate how much any of us trusts the public, we may debate how much any of us trusts the media, and how fair the media may be,” Prosecutor Judith Fabricant mentioned, “but the Constitution … and case law provide the right to public access to the courtroom.”
