District attorney lashes out at ICE for detaining suspect in Boston during a trial

By MICHAEL CASEY
Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) — A district attorney in Boston harshly criticized the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Wednesday, after one of its agents detained a suspect while he was on trial.

ICE agent Brian Sullivan detained Wilson Martell-Lebron last week as he was leaving court. But a Boston Municipal Court judge issued a ruling Monday against Sullivan, arguing that he had deprived Martell-Lebron of his rights to due process and a fair trial by taking him into custody.

“This action by ICE was troubling an extraordinarily reckless,” Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said. “As the judge noted, ICE’s actions deprived Mr. Martell-Lebron of his right to a fair trial. It also deprived our office of our intent to hold the defendant accountable for his alleged crime.”

Hayden also argued that actions like this made Boston less safe – contrary to what, he said, ICE claims.

“I’ve watched ICE actions over the last few months, and I have concerns that those actions are harming our public safety goals,” he said. “We’re now finding witnesses reluctant to cooperate with investigators due to fear of ICE. This harms public safety. We are seeing victims refuse to provide information about crimes against them due to fear of ICE. This harms public safety.”

A spokesman for ICE did not return a call seeking comment.

Summerville dismissed the charge against Martell-Lebron of making false statements on his driver’s license application — namely that he wasn’t Martell-Lebron. After that, Summerville filed the contempt charge against Sullivan, which could lead Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden review the case to determine if any charges should be filed.

“It’s reprehensible,” Ryan Sullivan, one of Martell-Lebron’s lawyers said. “Law enforcement agents have a job to see justice is done. Prosecutors have a job to see justice is done. There is no greater injustice in my mind than the government arresting someone, without identifying themselves, and preventing them from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to a jury trial.”

Immigration officers were a growing presence at courthouses during Trump’s first term, prompting pushback from judges and other local officials. Trump has gone further in his second term by repealing a policy in place since 2011 to generally avoid schools, places of worship and hospitals.

Under current policy, immigration officials can make arrests “in or near courthouses when they have credible information that leads them to believe the targeted alien(s) is or will be present” and as long as they are not prohibited by state or local law.

Hayden said could not recall a case where ICE had detained a defendant during a trial.

“It should not have happened, and we’re going to do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he told reporters.

Sullivan described a tense scene, in which ICE agents pounced on Martell-Lebron without identifying themselves, put him into a pickup truck and sped away. The trial Thursday had just begun with opening statements and the first witnesses.

Sullivan said Martell-Lebron, who is from the Dominican Republic and living with family in Massachusetts, is now at the Plymouth detention facility for allegedly being an undocumented immigrant, he said.

During the two-day hearing, Sullivan said that the lead prosecution witness confirmed that both the Massachusetts State police and prosecutors were aware of ICE plans to arrest Martell-Lebron.

“What we were challenging is that they arrested him in the middle of his trial and did not return him,” he said. “If he had been brought to court on Friday morning by ICE, we would not have moved to dismiss. We would not be asking for sanctions. We would have just finished the trial.”

In a statement Tuesday, state police said they acted appropriately after learning of the plans of ICE. “As in any situation where a member becomes aware of federal immigration enforcement, the Troopers responded appropriately by neither assisting nor obstructing the federal action,” the statement said.

Hayden also defended the way his attorneys handled the situation – denying they did anything to help ICE. He said they twice requested the judge issue an order compelling ICE to return Martell-Lebron.

“All of our actions in this case clearly demonstrated our intent to hold Martell-Lebron accountable,” Hayden said. “None of that demonstrated any collusion with ICE to deprive him of his right to a trial. Any claim that we collaborated with ICE in their actions to remove the defendant from the trial are wholly unsupported by any credible evidence.”