Defendants believed to be in U.S. illegally from Ecuador

By Peter Francis 17 hrs ago

HAVERHILL — A rape case involving two men believed to be in the U.S. illegally has been continued until next month.

Juan Carlos Cela-Tacuri, 19, and Manuel Segundo Agualema Guasco, 41, both of 50 White St., were in Haverhill District Court on Wednesday for a probable cause hearing stemming from their Aug. 12 arrests for the aggravated rape of a woman in Riverside Park that night.

The hearing was continued until Oct. 26.

Cela-Tacuri and Agualema Guasco were in court Wednesday after initially being scheduled to appear via video conference before Judge Stephen Abany.

Both Cela-Tacuri and Agualema Guasco are believed to be from Ecuador originally and have been encountered by U.S. Border Patrol agents on multiple occasions, with Agualema Guasco deported in 2013.

According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Border Patrol agents "encountered" Cela-Tacuri in Laredo, Texas in February 2015 and issued him a notice to appear in an immigration court in May of that year. In April, agents encountered Agualema Guasco, but did not detain him, either.

ICE has placed detainers — or “immigration holds” — on both men.

A detainer is a written request that a local jail or other law enforcement agency detain an individual for an additional 48 hours after his or her release date, which gives ICE agents extra time to decide whether to take the individual into federal custody for deportation.

But U.S. Border Patrol and ICE have refused to publicly explain what happened after border agents encountered the two men in 2015 and earlier this year.

The case has attracted the attention of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, whose Chairman, Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, cited it in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson demanding more information on the two men.

The reticence of the two agencies has also drawn the ire of Congressman Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican who serves as chairman of the House Immigration and Border Security subcommittee, who said in a statement the rape case is "another tragic consequence of our reckless immigration system."

"Both the current state of the law and the Obama administration's failure to enforce the law have allowed for these horrific events to occur," said Gowdy.

According to the police report, late on the night of Aug. 12, a Haverhill police cruiser was passing through Riverside Park when a woman came running out of the woods with her shirt partially torn screaming “help me.”

The woman told police she met two men at the Richdale convenience store on White Street who drove her to the park in a gray car, dragged her into the woods, punched her in the face and tried to rape her, according to the report.

After being apprehended by police, the two men, identified at the time Juan Cela and Manuel Agualema Guasco, were interviewed at the Haverhill Police Station, where Cela-Tacuri denied having sex with the woman and said he didn't know her.

Agualema Guasco told police the woman was charging them for sex and that Cela-Tacuri had sex with her. After initially saying he didn't have sex with her, Agualema Guasco later admitted to having sex with her.

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