Judge unearths elaborate ICE agent hoax: 'Some things simply strain the imagination'

U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents gave similar false testimony and falsified official records to conceal the illegal arrest of a Bronx man through deceptive actions that he said "strain the imagination."

Brown made the findings in a ruling Monday that provisionally granted Angel Jesus Almonte's petition challenging his detention. ICE agents arrested Almonte during a May 6 operation.

The same team also arrested Jeury Concepcion, a U.S. citizen who suffered head injuries that required stitches, according to the ruling.

The agents had been searching for two men who failed to appear after being ordered deported, and ICE claimed they mistook Almonte for one of them. But records ICE turned over at Brown's direction showed that target was five inches shorter and 80 pounds lighter than Almonte, according to the ruling.

"It's very easy to see they're two different people," ICE team leader John Katepodis conceded under questioning about photos of the two men.

"ICE's narrative justifying arrests because of misidentification of the arrestee as a 'target' of an ICE operation has an inglorious history," Brown wrote, citing a string of earlier cases.

At a bail hearing in June, three officers testified that they watched Almonte make about eight to 10 quick hand-to-hand exchanges just before the arrest, according to the ruling. Two called them drug deals, and Deportation Officer Kevin Brodowsky said he saw "baggies" exchanged for money from about 100 feet away.

"I did not actually see anything in his hand," Deportation Officer Zamir Yassin, who had the closest view, testified.

Agents found no cash, drugs or drug supplies on Almonte, and ICE's own arrest report said he had no money, Brown wrote. The officers also never reported the deals they described to the New York Police Department.

"Sir, we don't have the best relationship with NYPD, so I don't know how that would work," Katepodis told Brown when asked whether his team had alerted police.

"Apparently perjurious" testimony about the drug deals, meaning false statements under oath, bore "all the hallmarks of coordinated fabrication," Brown wrote.

Agents had tackled and handcuffed Almonte on May 6 without a warrant, the ruling says. A supervisor agreed by phone to issue one only after Katepodis realized the team had the wrong man and Almonte said he was in the country illegally.

ICE supervisor Brenden Cuni then searched five federal databases for Almonte and found nothing, he said in a sworn statement filed after Brown demanded an explanation.

Cuni signed the warrant anyway, checking boxes stating that biometric data confirmed Almonte's identity and that database records showed he had no legal status. Brown called it a "fraudulent arrest warrant."

After ICE processed Almonte and entered him into its databases, a second search found him "because Petitioner's information was now part of the system," Cuni wrote.

"Some things simply strain the imagination," Brown wrote.

Katepodis also signed a sworn certificate saying he personally delivered the warrant to Almonte in the Bronx and read it to him in Spanish, according to the ruling. He never had the warrant, and someone else served it in Manhattan. Katepodis admitted at the hearing that the certificate was false.

Minutes after Almonte's arrest, the same team arrested Concepcion on the same block, claiming they mistook him for the operation's other target, Brown wrote. Video shows a masked agent running at Concepcion with his gun drawn as Concepcion walked toward a barbershop. Brown called the arrest "extremely violent."

"The claims of misidentification here prove baseless, the arrests were procedurally deficient and legally invalid, and ICE agents falsified official records trying to conceal their illegal actions, which included significant injury to a U.S. citizen," Brown wrote.

"The combination of the officers' lack of training and preparation and the extraordinary pressure to exponentially increase the number of immigration arrests results in a proverbial recipe for disaster," Brown wrote, repeating a warning from an earlier ruling.

In the ruling, Brown ordered ICE to propose changes within 21 days, including possible discipline, before he decides whether to impose sanctions, refer the matter to other authorities or use his contempt powers.