The Boston defendant who was arrested by ICE brokers outdoors the courthouse throughout his trial final week reportedly had his previous drug trafficking prices tossed because of the Annie Dookhan lab scandal.
Wilson Martell-LeBron was detained by ICE brokers final Thursday outdoors the Boston Municipal Court docket Central Edward W. Brooke Courthouse — following the beginning of his trial for allegedly making a false assertion on an RMV utility and possession of a cast RMV doc.
The feds declare that he’s an undocumented immigrant from the Dominican Republic, who’s allegedly named Juan Carlos Baez. They arrested him mid-trial and introduced him to a detention facility in Plymouth.
Within the wake of that stunning mid-trial detainment, the BMC choose on Monday discovered an ICE agent in contempt after not displaying as much as courtroom, and Martell-Lebron’s case was dismissed with prejudice “due to egregious and intentional prosecutorial misconduct” following ICE’s arrest.
Martell-Lebron years in the past confronted drug prices in each Middlesex and Essex counties, in keeping with stories.
He was discovered responsible in Middlesex Superior Court docket on two counts of cocaine trafficking and one rely of heroin trafficking in 2009, and he was sentenced to as much as 15 years in jail.
In the meantime in Essex County, Martell-Lebron pleaded responsible to 1 rely of cocaine trafficking and one rely of heroin trafficking in 2009. That five-year sentence was to be served concurrently with the Middlesex sentence.
Then in 2017, these Essex County prices had been vacated and dismissed with prejudice resulting from the Annie Dookhan drug lab scandal.
Between 2003 and 2011, chemist Annie Dookhan engaged in severe misconduct at a state drug lab that jeopardized the integrity of greater than 20,000 circumstances in jap Massachusetts.
Due to Dookhan’s misconduct on the Hinton State Laboratory in Jamaica Plain, the Supreme Judicial Court docket ordered the dismissal with prejudice of hundreds of drug circumstances. Martell-Lebron’s prices in Essex County had been amongst these tossed circumstances.
“The Court’s finding(s) or judgment(s) on charge(s) 1 COCAINE, TRAFFICKING IN c94C 32E(b), 2 HEROIN/MORPHINE/OPIUM, TRAFFICKING IN c94C 32E(c), 3 DRUG, POSSESS CLASS C c94C 34, 4 DRUG, POSSESS CLASS D c94C 34 is/are vacated and these charges are ordered DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE, per order of the Supreme Judicial Court (Gaziano, J.),” reads the courtroom report.
Again to Monday, the Suffolk DA’s workplace stated it was “dismayed and surprised when our prosecution of Wilson Martell-Lebron was interrupted by ICE apprehending him in the middle of our case.”
“As soon as we were made aware of the detention we contacted ICE and requested his return to court,” a spokesperson for the DA’s workplace stated in an announcement, including, “Any claim that we were aware of an attempt to prevent Mr. Martell-Lebron from exercising his right to a trial is false… Federal authorities should not have detained him and interfered with our efforts to hold him accountable.”
Particular Agent Brian Sullivan was discovered to be in contempt, however he was not held in contempt as a result of he didn’t seem in courtroom on Monday.
“He sought relief from the United States Attorney’s Office to prevent his appearance to answer for why he disappeared Wilson Martell-Lebron in the middle of his trial,” lawyer Ryan Sullivan, who’s on the defendant’s authorized workforce, stated in an announcement.
“As for what we are calling on ICE to do, we are calling on them to respect the process of the law afforded to all individuals inside of the United States, regardless of their immigration status,” he added. “We are calling on them to not seek to uproot and ignore the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 12 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights to have a fair trial, or the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States constitution, guaranteeing due process. We can think of no greater failure of the rule of law than the government conspiring to kidnap a person in the middle of their trial seeking to demonstrate their innocence.”
Suffolk DA Kevin Hayden on Tuesday will maintain a press convention on the ICE detention of Martell-Lebron.
This ICE arrest comes after Tufts graduate scholar Rumeysa Ozturk was grabbed off the road by ICE brokers and shipped to a Louisiana facility. Ozturk, a PhD scholar and Fulbright Scholar from Turkey who was right here on a scholar visa, was taken into custody by federal brokers on the sidewalk outdoors her off-campus house in Somerville.
Ozturk in a previous op-ed criticized the college’s administration after the Tufts Senate handed resolutions concerning the “Palestinian genocide” and divesting from firms with ties to Israel. The Division of Homeland Safety stated she was arrested due to her alleged “support of Hamas,” however has not offered additional data.
