Grand Jury investigating judge for aiding an illegal alien evade ICE

Grand Jury Probing Judge for Helping Migrant Avoid ICE, Say Feds

A federal grand jury is reportedly investigating a rookie Massachusetts judge after she allegedly allowed a suspected illegal alien to avoid arrest by immigration officers. The judge reportedly allowed the man to take a rear exit from a courtroom after learning federal officers were planning an arrest.

“ICE is going to get him,” the judge told a defense attorney and state prosecutor during a sidebar conversation in an April 2 court hearing. “What if we continue [the case]?” she suggested, according to a court recording published by the Boston Globe.

The sidebar conversation came up during a hearing in the Newton, Massachusetts, District Court presided over by first-year Judge Shelley M. Joseph. The case involved a suspected illegal immigrant, Jose Medina-Perez, charged with drug possession. He is also reported to be the subject of a Pennsylvania warrant for drunken driving, the Globe reported.

During the hearing, defense attorney David Jellinek asked the judge for a sidebar conversation. Under state law, all court proceedings are recorded. The court’s recorder picked up some of the sidebar conversations before the first-year judge remembered she was being recorded and instructed the court reporter to turn off the recording so she could go “off the record.”

Jellinek appears to plead the case that his client is not the suspect wanted in Pennsylvania and is actually a U.S. citizen. “ICE is convinced that this guy,” Jellinek told the judge. “ICE will pick him up if he walks out the front door. But I think the best thing for us to do is clear the fugitive issue and release him on personal [inaudible].”

The prosecutor does not appear to put up a fight against letting the man go. “There is a detainer attached to my paperwork,” the prosecutor told the judge, “but I felt like that’s separate and apart from what my role is.”
“ICE is going to get him,” the judge says in the recording. “What if we continue…”
Jellinek interrupts the judge and asks, “Are we filming?”