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Sanctuary city judge furious after ICE agents stroll in and arrest illegal alien right under his nose

April 2, 2025 | | Print Article

A “sanctuary city” judge was furious after immigration authorities arrested an illegal alien literally right underneath his nose.

The illegal alien, Dominican national William Martell-Lebron (aka Juan Carlos Baez), appeared in a Boston courtroom last Thursday for the first day of his jury trial on charges that he’d provided false information on a license application.

But immediately after the first day of his trial concluded, plainclothes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents appeared out of nowhere outside the courthouse, arrested him, tossed him into an unmarked SUV, and drove off, according to The Boston Globe.

Watch:

Boston Municipal Court Judge Mark Summerville was reportedly furious when he found out the following day, during the start of the second day of Martell-Lebron’s trial, that the defendant was in ICE custody.

The judge subsequently scheduled an emergency hearing during which he dismissed the license case against Martell-Lebron and found the ICE agent who’d conducted Thursday’s arrest in contempt of court.

“This is a disturbing case. This is a case of obstruction of justice. It’s a case of violating a defendant’s right to be present at trial and confront witnesses against him. Couldn’t be more serious,” the judge said during the emergency hearing, as reported by local station WBTS.

The judge also slammed prosecutors Jack Lucy and Matt Liber for allegedly knowing about ICE’s plans beforehand but not telling the court. The arresting ICE agent, Brian Sullivan, allegedly told Lucy and Liber about his plans while the court was in recess for lunch on Thursday.

James Borghesani, a spokesperson for the Suffolk district attorney’s office, has, for his part, denied the legitimacy of this claim.

“Any claim that we were aware of an attempt to prevent Mr. Martell-Lebron from exercising his right to a trial is false,” he said in a statement. “It was and still is our intention to try Mr. Martell-Lebron and hold him accountable for the crimes alleged in the complaint. Federal authorities should not have detained him and interfered with our efforts to hold him accountable.”

Martell-Lebron’s lawyers were also angered by their client’s arrest.

“It’s reprehensible,” attorney Ryan Sullivan said, as reported by the Associated Press. “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,” he added.

But in a statement to Newsweek, ICE officials defended Martell-Lebron’s arrest by noting that he’s been living in the U.S. illegally since 2000 and that he has prior drug trafficking convictions.

All this comes months after Trump administration border czar Tom Homan pledged to “bring hell to Boston,” a sanctuary city with a history of harboring and protecting dangerous illegal aliens.

“I looked at the numbers this morning,” he said during a speech at CPAC this past February. “I counted, I stopped counting at nine child rapists that were in jail in Massachusetts. But rather than honoring an ICE detainer, [local authorities] released them back into the street.”

Speaking of child rapists, ICE agents arrested an illegal alien charged with the aggravated rape of a child just weeks ago in late February.

“Jose Oswaldo Castro-Castro illegally crossed our borders and appallingly victimized a child in Massachusetts,” an ICE official said at the time. “Castro has done unspeakable damage to our community that we cannot tolerate. Arrests like this only fortify our commitment to our mission of prioritizing the safety of our public by arresting and removing criminal alien offenders from our New England neighborhoods.”

Vivek Saxena
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