An undocumented man who faces deportation after he was framed as the author of letters threatening to kill President Donald Trump was deemed not a danger to the public during a bond hearing Tuesday.
Ramón Morales Reyes, 54, was arrested on May 22 in connection with handwritten letters sent by mail to federal and Wisconsin officials threatening to shoot Trump, the Department of Homeland Security said last month.
However, an investigation found Morales Reyes didn’t write them.
According to court documents, the letters were actually sent by Demetric D. Scott, 52, in an attempt to frame Morales Reyes because he was a potential witness against Scott in a robbery case. Scott was questioned by authorities and confessed to writing the letters.
Scott was charged last week with felony witness intimidation, identity theft, and two counts of bail jumping in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, court.
Morales Reyes’ June 4 bond hearing was delayed after the confession came to light.
At a bond hearing in Chicago immigration court on Tuesday, Judge Carla Espinoza set Morales Reyes’ bond at $7,500 after the court and Department of Homeland Security had time to review the evidence about the forged threatening letters.
The judge noted that though Morales Reyes had several arrests from 1996, he was only convicted for disorderly conduct.
The DHS described Morales Reyes as an “illegal alien” when he was taken into ICE custody. Last week a senior DHS official told NBC News Morales Reyes will remain in custody because, “this individual was determined to be in the country illegally and that he had a criminal record.”
He had entered the U.S. illegally at least nine times from 1998 to 2005, and had a criminal record with arrests on charges of felony hit and run, criminal damage to property and disorderly conduct with a domestic abuse modifier, the DHS said.
Morales Reyes has been living in the U.S. for nearly 40 years and has three children who are U.S. citizens, his attorney, Cain Oulahan, previously told NBC News.
NBC News has reached out Oulahan for comment on the bond hearing.
Morales Reyes will receive a new hearing notice once he posts bond, and if he doesn’t, his next hearing is set for July 10.
