ICE has swooped in to take custody of an illegal immigrant accused of trying to kidnap and rape a 4-year-old Virginia girl after Fairfax County prosecutors dropped the case against him.
Hyrum Baquedano Rodriguez, a Honduran immigrant, was being held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Caroline Detention Facility in Caroline County.
He was initially charged in June 2023 with breaking into a home and attempting to abduct and “defile” the child. However, Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano steadily reduced the charges and eventually reached a plea deal that called for less than two years in prison.
Two judges rejected the plea deal, the latest on Friday, and Mr. Descano dropped the case altogether.
Mr. Descano’s office blamed the judges.
“The allegations in this case are deeply concerning. Unfortunately, there were multiple evidentiary issues with this case, and when the judge was presented with these facts, she declined to accept the plea agreement, which we viewed as the best opportunity for accountability. We are disappointed in the judge’s decision,” said Laura Birnbaum, deputy chief of staff for the commonwealth’s attorney.
Critics said Mr. Descano was trying to show leniency for an illegal immigrant.
“Sick Soros DA drops all charges,” Virginians 4 Safe Communities said on social media, calling Mr. Descano’s decision an act of “petulance.”
ICE blasted the decision in a statement saying Mr. Baquedano was a “calamitous hazard” to the community.
“Every one of his convictions represents another one of our neighbors that Baquedano-Rodriguez has victimized,” said Russell Hott, director of ICE’s Washington field office.
Mr. Descano has made leniency toward immigrants an official part of his office policy. He has ordered prosecutors to consider “immigration consequences” when making decisions.
That includes pursuing lower charges in cases where stiffer convictions could mean automatic deportation.
Other county officials, including the sheriff’s department, have blamed Mr. Descano’s office for Fairfax’s growing reputation as a sanctuary jurisdiction with weak prosecutions of illegal immigrants.
The court documents in Mr. Baquedano’s case don’t say whether his immigrant status was a factor, but they detail striking decisions to lessen the charges.
According to court documents, a man broke into an Annandale area home where the 4-year-old and her mother were asleep in separate beds on June 15, 2023. The mother awoke to see the window blinds rustling and heard the girl yelling from the living room. The girl said a “big man” had grabbed her from her bed and tried to carry her out, but apparently abandoned the plan when she started screaming.
Police found a shoe print outside the window and palm and thumb prints from the window. They matched the prints to Mr. Baquedano.
Prosecutors initially charged him with burglary “with the intent to commit murder, rape, robbery or arson” and with “abduction, with intent to defile” the 4-year-old.
By August 2023, those charges were reduced to abduction, and the “intent to defile” was crossed out of the warrant. By February 2024, the girl’s age was dropped from the indictment, reducing the charges from a Class 2 felony, punishable by life in prison, to a Class 5 felony, good for up to 10 years.
Along the way, the burglary charge was reduced to a misdemeanor “unlawful entry” charge, with the maximum penalty cut from 20 years to one year.
Under the first plea deal, time served would be capped at two years.
Judge Randy I. Bellows rejected that in June 2024. He wrote that the plea deal “fell woefully short” of justice, particularly because Mr. Baquedano was a repeat offender.
“When the court system has tried without success to bring a defendant into compliance with the law, and when that defendant has committed a crime of such gravity that it can only be described as posing an existential threat to a child’s life, the only goal of sentencing likely to protect the community is a lengthy period of incarceration,” the judge wrote.
In defending the plea, prosecutors said they couldn’t rely on the 4-year-old as a witness and that the case had too many other iffy parts. They feared not being able to prove Mr. Baquedano was the man who grabbed the child.
Judge Bellows said the evidence of the prints from the windows was damning and good enough to win a burglary conviction.
“Is the commonwealth [attorney] really concerned that the jury might think there were two break-ins that evening, one to abduct and one for some other purpose?” he said.
He pointed out that Mr. Baquedano had five other convictions, including one that began as burglary or indecent liberty charges.
Judge Susan Stoney made the decision Friday to reject the second plea deal.
Mr. Baquedano illegally sneaked into the U.S. in 2018 and was ordered released on bond by an immigration judge in 2019.
Fairfax County police arrested him in 2021 and charged him with exposing genitals to a child and indecent exposure. He was convicted in 2022 of entering a property to commit damage and petit larceny.
That same year, he was convicted of disorderly conduct and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. In 2023, before his arrest on the break-in and attempted rape accusations, he was convicted of entering a property with intent to damage.
He was on probation at the time of the break-in at the 4-year-old’s home, the judge said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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