Thread: Morris County prosecutor asks for increased bail illegal

Morris County prosecutor asks for increased bail on possible illegal alien awaiting trial
by Jim Lockwood/The Star-Ledger
Wednesday February 04, 2009, 7:51 PM
The Morris County Prosecutor's Office wants the bail increased on another suspected illegal alien held in jail on criminal charges and who has a federal immigration detainer placed on him.

It's the second such motion in the past three weeks by the prosecutor's office seeking a significant bail increase on an illegal alien, to keep the defendant held in the Morris County jail instead of possibly posting bail and being turned over to the federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and deported. That's what happened in December when an illegal alien in an unrelated case posted bail and was picked up by ICE, and then consented to deportation before his local criminal case was resolved.

To avoid a similar outcome, the prosecutor's office filed a motion Tuesday in Superior Court in Morristown to have the $75,000 bail of Carlos Flores-Gomez, a suspected illegal alien from Mexico charged last year with a robbery in Dover, raised from $75,000 to an unspecified, cash-only higher figure. A judge is expected to hear that motion Friday.

"In light of what recently has happened with this issue, and in order to protect cases of a similar nature, we are asking for a review of all bails previously set where ICE detainers have thereafter been lodged," Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi said today in a statement. "We are doing this based on what we believe to be significant 'change in circumstances' in that the defendant making bail could actually result in being deported prior to answering the criminal charges.

"We want to ensure the court is apprised of each flight risk that cases of this nature pose but that may have been unknown at the time of the setting of the original bail, as it was never an issue the court or prosecution confronted before," he said.

In the December case, an 20-year-old undocumented Honduran immigrant, Carlos Ulloa-Murillo, who was charged last year with a child-sex assault in Morris Township, posted bail and was picked up by ICE on its detainer. Then, at a federal hearing, he consented to deportation and was sent back to Honduras.

That prompted the prosecutor's office on Jan. 14 to seek a bail increase for Manuel Fajardo-Santos, another illegal alien from Honduras, who is charged with sexually assaulting a child in Wharton last year. He posted bail last month was turned over to ICE on its detainer but has since been returned to the county jail.

Fajardo-Santos' attorney, public defender Michael Fletcher, opposed his bail increase, arguing there was no change in the case that warranted such a hike, the initial $75,000 bail was deemed appropriate by a judge, and ICE also issued its own bail of $15,000. But a judge raised Fajardo-Santos' bail to $300,000 because he agreed with the prosecutor that Fajardo-Santos represented a flight risk if he were to consent to deportation while in ICE custody.

However, on Jan. 27, the state Appellate Division reversed the bail increase for Fajardo-Santos and restored it to its original $75,000. Two days later, the Appellate Division issued a temporary stay, or suspension, of its order so the prosecutor could file papers for a full stay pending an appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Flores-Gomez was 26 years old when he was arrested Sept. 13 in Dover for allegedly knocking a 78-year-old woman down to the ground while snatching her purse. She injured her hip and broke her dentures in the fall. Flores-Gomez gave a fake birth date when arrested, trying to hide the fact that there was an immigration warrant for him, and also tried to get rid of the purse and resisted arrest, authorities had said. He is charged with robbery, aggravated assault, hindering apprehension and tampering with evidence.

His bail had been set by a judge at $75,000. On Sept. 14, ICE placed a detainer on Flores-Gomez, "a Mexican national who is apparently in this country illegally," and the bail was maintained Sept. 17 during a hearing, the prosecutor's bail motion states. Flores-Gomez, who remains held in the county jail in lieu of bail, has rejected a plea offer of five years in prison in exchange for a guilty plea. He represents a "significant flight risk" should he post bail, the motion states.

The root of the problem is a jurisdictional one, and the fact that someone is charged criminally in a state court apparently has no relevance or bearing in a federal deportation hearing, Bianchi has said. He believes the law needs to be changed so ICE detainees would be held without bail.

"Curiously, there appears to be no mechanism by which the federal government will hold removal (deportation) proceedings in abeyance to allow the trial of pending state charges, unless the alien is considered an alien terrorist," the motion states.

Fletcher declined to comment on the Flores-Gomez bail motion.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/0 ... _asks.html

The root of the problem is a jurisdictional one, and the fact that someone is charged criminally in a state court apparently has no relevance or bearing in a federal deportation hearing, Bianchi has said. He believes the law needs to be changed so ICE detainees would be held without bail.

There we go! Finally... someone gets it!