Thread: Illegal Alien 'DUI Killer' Already Fed Target

'DUI KILLER' WAS FED TARGET

DODGED DEPORTATION FOR 20 YEARS

By IKIMULISA LIVINGSTON, IRENE PLAGIANOS and JEANE MacINTOSH

Livery cab passenger Panayiota Demetriou killed by SUV driver Daryush Omar.

Last updated: 9:59 am
November 18, 2008
Posted: 4:37 am
November 18, 2008


The feds wanted him out of the country from the minute he got here.

But thanks to a 20-year tangle of red tape that stretched from New York to Washington, DC, to Afghanistan, they couldn't get illegal immigrant and trouble-prone Daryush Omar deported.

Omar, 24, was charged late Sunday with two counts of vehicular manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, drunken driving and speeding after he allegedly tore through a red light and plowed his speeding luxury Range Rover SUV into a livery cab in Queens.

The crash killed driver Bessy Velasquez, 41, a beloved Brooklyn single mom of two daughters and her passenger, Panayiota "Yota" Demetriou, 30, a Greek-bred beauty who lived in Queens and was working on her Ph.D. at Pace University.

Omar - who allegedly told cops he had "two drinks" before getting behind the wheel - blew a .176 on a Breathalyzer test, more than twice the legal limit, according to Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

The fatal collision is the latest in a string of criminal problems for Omar, who is Pakistani but a citizen of Afghanistan.

He is considered to be the suspect in the May 2006 beating death of investment banker Thomas Whitney outside a Manhattan nightclub. But Omar was sprung from Rikers Island in January 2007 by a New York judge after the Manhattan District Attorney's Office failed to get an indictment against him.

Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement picked him up again, but - unable to get necessary travel documents from Afghanistan - had to let him go in April because of a US law that limits the time foreign-born detainees can be held.

For years, efforts to kick Omar out of the country have gone nowhere, according to federal court documents, which claim:

* Omar came to the US illegally as a child, flying into JFK Airport with his mother on July 6, 1989.

* In 1992, an immigration judge denied his mother's asylum application and ordered Omar "excluded" from the United States.

* He was ordered out again in February 1994, but didn't leave.

* In October 2004, Omar was picked up by the Nassau County Police Department on an outstanding ICE warrant, and arrested the next day by federal agents.

* That same month, ICE officials made the first of several requests for travel documents from Afghan officials to deport Omar.

* On Nov. 30, 2004, Omar was taken into custody in Ocean County, NJ, on another outstanding warrant for driving while impaired and using offensive language. He was convicted Dec. 10 on the latter charge and returned to ICE custody.

* In September 2005, an immigration judge again ordered him deported; the order was finalized that October.

* In 2005, Omar allegedly renounced his Afghan citizenship in an effort to thwart deportation efforts.

* On Feb. 17, 2006, ICE - still without the paperwork to send him to Afghanistan - let Omar out on supervised release.

* On June 1, 2006, Omar was arrested but not charged in the pipe-beating robbery and murder of Whitney.

* From October 2006 through January 2008, ICE officials made a series of requests to Afghan officials, again requesting travel documents and asking the status of Omar's renunciation request.

* In February 2008, Afghan officials here told ICE they still hadn't made a decision of Omar's renunciation request.

Yesterday, Luis Martinez of ICE said an immigrant's criminal history doesn't allow the agency to hold anyone past the legal 180-day limit set by Congress in 2001. "Simply put, immigration detention is not used for punitive reasons," he said.

Omar is now being held without bail and faces up to 15 years in jail if convicted of killing Velasquez and Demetriou.

In Brooklyn yesterday, friends grieved for Velasquez and had their thoughts on her teen daughters.

"She was always looking out for the future of her daughters," said Ricardo Duran, a fellow cabdriver.

In Queens, a stream of friends filed into Demetriou's home.

"She fell in love with New York, she said Manhattan was the love of her life," said Eleni Toumarides, 31, a childhood friend from Cypress.

Additional reporting by Laura Italiano and Matthew Nestel

ikimulisa.livingston@nypost.com

From: "The Center for Immigration Studies, Morning News, 11/18/08"
http://www.cis.org/griffith/morningnews111808

"The New York Post" link lists this story as "unavailable", evidentally because it is an update of a story "more than 30 days old".

Another tragedy on the heads of our elected officials.