TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Jose Carranza, an illegal alien from Peru, was indicted twice this year: 31 counts surrounding the reputed sexual assault of a child and nine stemming from a bar fight.
But federal immigration officials hadn’t heard of him until Thursday, when he was charged in the execution-style shooting deaths of three Newark college students.
Mr. Carranza had been free after posting a bond of $5,000 when the shootings occurred, but immigration officials say he may never have returned to the streets had local authorities contacted them after his first felony arrest in October 2006.
We certainly would have been inclined to place him in a removal proceeding, however we came across him, said Marc Raimondi, spokesman for United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Given that he is alleged to have committed a very serious offense against a child, that would have put him at the top of our list.
New Jersey is among the places where local authorities aren’t required to check the immigration status of someone arrested, and some critics want that changed.
If New Jersey is not prepared to cooperate with federal officials in enforcing the law of the land, then our state is no longer governed by laws, said state Assemblyman Richard Merkt, a Republican who last year proposed a bill that would require jail officials to remand illegal aliens to federal authorities. The legislation never advanced.
Last week Mr. Carranza, 28, was charged in the Aug. 4 shootings of four persons, ages 18 to 20, in a schoolyard near their homes. The three who died were forced to kneel against a wall and shot at close range; a fourth survived a gunshot wound to the head.
Two juveniles also were arrested, and authorities have a warrant for a fourth suspect, Rodolfo Godinez, 24. Mr. Raimondi said Mr. Godinez is a lawful permanent resident, a status obtained in 2001 despite several arrests.
Mr. Carranza was indicted in April on assault and weapons charges from the barroom fight, then was indicted in July on sexual assault charges. Bail was set at $50,000 for the first case and $150,000 on the other, but Mr. Carranza had to post only $5,000 using a bail bondsman, according to court records.
At the request of state Senate President Richard J. Codey, New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram agreed to review the two men’s cases.
Someone clearly dropped the ball here, and now three good kids are gone and another is seriously wounded, said Mr. Codey, a Democrat.
The prosecutor supervising the sex assault case, Mark S. Ali, said the office probably thought Mr. Carranza had legal status based on an application that the suspect made for a court-appointed attorney. Yesterday, a judge revoked Mr. Carranza’s bail at the request of prosecutors.
Paul Loriquet, a spokesman for the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, said the office generally refers illegal aliens to federal authorities only after a defendant is sentenced.
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