A Cumberland County man accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl is now a fugitive wanted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the court.
Luciano Dominguez-Trejo, who is from Mexico, was arrested Aug. 12, on nine counts involving the alleged 2015 sexual assault of his then-girlfriend’s 14-year-old daughter.
He was released Aug. 23, two days after Superior Court Judge Robert Malestein denied the state’s motion to detain Dominguez-Trejo pending trial.
But it appears the cook who was living in Bridgeton has not complied with the terms of his pretrial release, and is now wanted on a bench warrant, court records show.
ICE — who has him listed as Trejo-Dominguez — also wants him on a It also seems the Cumberland County Jail could have kept him longer, even while still complying with the attorney general’s directive concerning ICE detainers.
Both the Pacific Enforcement Response Center and the ICE office in Mount Laurel filed detainers with the Cumberland County jail more than two weeks before his release, according to ICE.
The case is one of 29 acting ICE Director Matthew Albence has cited as showing why Attorney General Gurbir Grewal’s directive to stop compliance with such detainers “threatens public safety.”
“It is past time to put aside all the political rhetoric and listen to the facts – and the fact is, people are being hurt and victimized every day because of jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with ICE,” he said.
“ICE-ERO (Enforcement and Removal Operations) depends upon local and state law enforcement cooperation in regards to ICE detainers,” ICE-ERO Newark told BreakingAC. “The NJ AG Directive prevented that in this case.”
But under the directive, a defendant can be detained longer than their release eligibility if they are charged with or have been convicted of a violent or serious crime.
Such cases also allow ICE to be notified of an inmate’s upcoming release, the directive states.
That means ICE could have found out before Dominguez-Trejo was being let out, and had him held, as long as they picked him up by 11:59 p.m. the day of his scheduled release.
The directive has been ignored by sheriffs in Cape May and Monmouth counties. On Friday, Grewal ordered them to comply.
Federal detainers are different than judicial warrants in that they're signed by federal immigration officers. The directive allows compliance with judicial warrants, which are signed by judges.
No one at the Cumberland County jail returned calls seeking comment.
