Massachusetts: Grand Jury Probing Judge for Helping Illegal Alien Avoid ICE – IOTW Report

Massachusetts: Grand Jury Probing Judge for Helping Illegal Alien Avoid ICE

Breitbart: A federal grand jury is reportedly investigating a rookie Massachusetts judge after she allegedly allowed a suspected illegal alien to avoid arrest by immigration officers. The judge reportedly allowed the man to take a rear exit from a courtroom after learning federal officers were planning an arrest.

“ICE is going to get him,” the judge told a defense attorney and state prosecutor during a sidebar conversation in an April 2 court hearing. “What if we continue [the case]?” she suggested, according to a court recording published by the Boston Globe.

The sidebar conversation came up during a hearing in the Newton, Massachusetts, District Court presided over by first-year Judge Shelley M. Joseph. The case involved a suspected illegal immigrant, Jose Medina-Perez, charged with drug possession. He is also reported to be the subject of a Pennsylvania warrant for drunken driving, the Globe reported.

During the hearing, defense attorney David Jellinek asked the judge for a sidebar conversation. Under state law, all court proceedings are recorded. The court’s recorder picked up some of the sidebar conversations before the first-year judge remembered she was being recorded and instructed the court reporter to turn off the recording so she could go “off the record.”

Jellinek appears to plead the case that his client is not the suspect wanted in Pennsylvania and is actually a U.S. citizen. “ICE is convinced that this guy,” Jellinek told the judge. “ICE will pick him up if he walks out the front door. But I think the best thing for us to do is clear the fugitive issue and release him on personal [inaudible].”

The prosecutor does not appear to put up a fight against letting the man go. “There is a detainer attached to my paperwork,” the prosecutor told the judge, “but I felt like that’s separate and apart from what my role is.”

“ICE is going to get him,” the judge says in the recording. “What if we continue…”

Jellinek interrupts the judge and asks, “Are we filming?”

What sounds like a shocked gasp from a female voice can be heard in the tape and the judge says, “Larry (court reporter), can we go off the record for a moment?”

The court reporter asks, “What’s that?” and Judge Joseph responds, “Are we off the record?”

The court reporter responds, “No, ma’am.” The recording abruptly stops at that point.

The Globe reported the conversation continued for another 58 seconds after the recording stopped. A few minutes later, Medina-Perez was reportedly escorted downstairs, released from custody, and allowed to exit through a back door. He then reportedly scaled a fence and “took off, leaving the immigration agent behind,” the newspaper reported from people “briefed on the episode.”

Later that month (April), immigration officers arrested Medina-Perez in Roslindale, Massachusetts. An immigration judge freed the migrant on a bond and his case is now pending. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials say the man’s real name is Oscar Manuel Peguero, the Globe reported. ICE says he is actually a 38-year-old Dominican national who has been deported on two previous occasions – in January 2003 and June 2007.  read more

10 Comments on Massachusetts: Grand Jury Probing Judge for Helping Illegal Alien Avoid ICE

  1. “What sounds like a shocked gasp from a female voice can be heard in the tape and the judge says, “Larry (court reporter), can we go off the record for a moment?” was actually the sound of the Judge’s brain made when it realized that her career as a Judge was now on borrowed time because indictment or not she’ll be fired.

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  2. Why am I not surprised to learn that not one but two liberal, female judges let their bleeding hearts and feelings dictate how justice would be served instead of following the laws they swore to uphold?

  3. ummm, bye-bye judge. no room for your lack of following laws and sneakiness. one in your position can’t follow your heart, sorry! we simply don’t need judges like you in this state or country!
    #byebyeillegalaliens

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