Immigration authorities are seeking custody of an illegal migrant caught on camera allegedly sexually assaulting and robbing a dead body on a subway train, but local Democrats may have created a roadblock for them.
Felix Jeronimo-Rojas was arrested by New York City authorities Sunday after he was caught on video April 9 allegedly raping a male corpse for over thirty minutes while riding a Manhattan subway train. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said they have lodged a detainer with Rikers Island for Jeronimo, but a New York City Council lawsuit has so far kept ICE agents out of the prison complex. (RELATED: Suspected MS-13 Gangbanger Democrats Rushed To Defend Named In Second Domestic Abuse Case)
Jeronimo first allegedly assaulted the dead body around 11:44 p.m. that night before moving the corpse to the floor, where he would then momentarily pause his attacks whenever the train would reach a station, according to prosecutors. Local authorities say the corpse was orally and anally violated during the incident.
Following the alleged rape, camera footage caught a woman later robbing the dead body for a second time before an MTA employee eventually discovered the corpse face-down on the subway around 12:30 a.m.
Federal immigration authorities have since confirmed Jeronimo is an illegal migrant with a long history of unlawfully entering the U.S.
“Felix Jeronimo-Rojas is an illegal alien from Mexico who unlawfully entered the United States on several occasions,” an ICE spokesperson stated Friday to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “U.S. Border Patrol encountered Jeronimo three times in 1998 and once in 1999,”
Felix Jeronimo-Lopez. Photo by the Department of Homeland Security.
“He was voluntarily returned to Mexico on each occasion,” the spokesperson continued. “Jeronimo illegally reentered the U.S. without admission on a later unknown date and remained unencountered until [the New York Police Department] arrested him April 27, for allegedly raping a corpse on the subway April 8.”
Jeronimo reportedly turned himself into police after his son recognized him in video footage released by the New York City Police Department. A judge ruled Tuesday that he would be held in custody without bail.
ICE officers Wednesday lodged an immigration detainer for Jeronimo with the NYC Department of Corrections at Rikers Island, the agency confirmed to the DCNF. However, this detainer request could prove difficult for immigration authorities, as ICE agents are — once again — prohibited from entering Rikers Island.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams, a growing proponent of cooperating with immigration authorities in order to remove criminal illegal migrants, signed an executive order in April allowing ICE agents back onto Rikers Island, the largest prison facility in the city. The order was limited in scope, allowing ICE and other federal agencies to open offices at the prison complex for the purpose of conducting criminal investigations, not for any routine enforcement of immigration laws.
However, the liberal Democrat-dominated New York City Council immediately sued, resulting in a state supreme court judge in April temporarily blocking the order from going into effect.
The dead body on the subway train was what remained of 37-year-old Jorge Gonzalez, himself an immigrant from Mexico. Gonzalez died while on the train in what his estranged wife, Teresa, believes was the result of his years of rampant alcoholism.
“We were happy. Yes, we were. But the thing is all the pressures of life, new marriage, new child, I was working a lot, he was working a lot and slowly he just became an alcoholic,” Teresa said to the New York Daily News.
“He just took off and just rode into the sunset,” she continued, according to the New York Daily News, adding that she had not seen Gonzalez in roughly five years. “We were having issues. He just decided to leave the house and that was pretty much it.”
The allegations against Jeronimo come just a few months after Sebastian Zapeta, a previously-deported Guatemalan illegal migrant, was arrested for allegedly burning a homeless woman alive while riding on the NYC subway train. Local investigators believe the woman was asleep on the train in December when Zapeta approached her and used a match to light her clothes on fire.
Jeronimo has been charged with rape and grand larceny, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed in a Thursday press release. DHS reiterated its commitment to removing criminal illegal migrants from the country.
“With impunity open border policies have allowed violent criminal aliens to terrorize America’s towns and cities,” Assistant Secretary Tricia Mclaughlin said in a statement.“Under President Trump and Secretary Noem’s leadership, ICE is working around the clock to remove the worst of the worst from our communities.”
“If you are here illegally and break the law, we will hunt you down, arrest you and lock you up,” McLaughlin continued.
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