A Trump-appointed federal judge ripped federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for giving false sworn testimony and records to justify the violent mistaken-identity arrests of two men in the Bronx, one of whom was a U.S. citizen they mistook for an undocumented immigrant.
Long Island U.S. District Court Judge Gary Brown issued his fiery, 28-page ruling on Monday in the case of Dominican immigrant Angel Almonte, one of the two men arrested by the agents.
Brown called into question the agents’ claim that they busted Almonte by mistake, since the man they said they were actually targeting was five inches shorter and 80 pounds lighter.
Masked ICE agents arrested Almonte and a second man, Jeury Concepcion, in separate caught-on-video rough take-downs on May 6 in the Bronx, on Decatur and Hull Aves. Concepcion, who was slammed to the ground by masked agents with guns out, is a U.S. citizen.
“Particularly problematic in this case, the evidence suggests that ICE attempted to support their unsupported misidentification argument through false or misleading documentation and testimony,” Brown wrote. “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.”
Three of the agents involved in the Almonte bust — Team Leader John Katepodis, Deportation Officer Kevin Brodowsky and Deportation Officer Zamir Yassin — gave “evasive and apparently perjurious testimony,” particularly when they claimed they witnessed Almonte engaged in hand-to-hand drug sales.
Their sworn statements “bear all the hallmarks of coordinated fabrication,” Brown said, pointing out that the allegations of drug dealing didn’t show up in any documents or paperwork before Almonte’s bail hearing.
After Almonte’s arrest, ICE agents ginned up a fake arrest warrant after the fact, claiming that he showed up in ICE databases, Brown said.
That claim turned out to be false — Brenden Cuni, a Supervisory Detention and Deportation Officer with ICE, ran five searches and found nothing, then processed the warrant and had an officer run those searches again, Brown said.
“Cuni attempted to reconcile these falsehoods by subsequently collecting the information, adding it to those systems and, after issuing the warrant, searching the databases again to ‘find’ him,” Brown wrote.
Brown ordered Almonte released on June 26.
In the case of Concepcion, the ICE team leader, Katepodis, tried to minimize his role at the hearing, saying, “I don’t see how this would be related to me,” even though he was leading the team that made the arrests.
Concepcion, 19, was walking to a barbershop, apparently unaware of a masked ICE agent holding a gun sideways at him, rushing down the sidewalk at him, Brown wrote. The judge called the Concepcion’s takedown “extremely violent,” pointing out that he needed stitches to close the wounds on his head.
“I turned my back around. I got two guns in my head and everything. They throw me on the floor. I didn’t know what was going on. He ain’t ask me for no ID,” Concepcion told News 12 in May. “I’m from New York. I was raised and born here.”
As part of his ruling, the judge put two photos side-by-side, one of the man ICE was looking for, the other of Concepcion.
Two of the agents testified that they believed their actual target had “drug charges” on his record. Though their target had been arrested for reckless endangerment and fleeing from an officer, he didn’t actually have any history of drug arrests, Brown said.
As part of his decision, Brown floated possible sanctions and contempt rulings, ordering ICE to respond to him within 21 days with what steps or disciplinary actions it will take in the wake of his findings.
Brown — who first became a magistrate judge in 2011, was nominated by Trump to the federal bench as a district court judge in 2018 — has sharply criticized ICE in the past. In December, he accused the agency of ignoring court orders to release a Jamaican immigrant married to a U.S. citizen whom ICE detained for days inside a “putrid and cramped” holding cell on Long Island.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday.
