Boston judge who blocked migrant's ICE arrest and let him slip out the back door is hit with new charges
A Massachusetts judge has been slapped with fresh charges after she was accused helping a twice-deported illegal immigrant evade Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2018.
Judge Shelley Joseph, now assigned to Boston Municipal Court, is under fire again six years after she allegedly allowed Jose Medina-Perez to walk out a back door of the Newton District Courthouse to avoid getting arrested by the ICE agents on duty.
In a scathing 112-page report, the state's Commission on Judicial Conduct accused Joseph of 'willful judicial misconduct' and bringing 'disrepute' to the court system.
While these aren't criminal charges, the commission did ask the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to appoint a hearing officer - likely a retired judge - to 'preside over a public hearing'.
At this hearing, which will take place 30 to 60 days from now, Joseph could lose her $207,855 a year job as a judge.
Joseph was indicted in 2019 by former US Attorney Andrew Lelling, a Trump appointee, but those three charges were dropped in 2022 because she 'agreed to refer herself' to the commission, where the case now stands.
The commission presented the facts of the case in their charging document and said Joseph failed 'to cooperate and be candid and honest with judicial disciplinary authorities'.
Joseph's attorney, Thomas Hoopes, said she looks forward to a hearing 'where all the circumstances finally become public'.
Judge Shelley Joseph is pictured leaving federal court on April 25, 2019 after she was indicted for allegedly helping an illegal migrant evade ICE officials. She now faces fresh charges from the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct
Jose Medina-Perez, originally from the Dominican Republic, was in court on April 2, 2018, facing drug charges and a fugitive from justice warrant from Pennsylvania
On April 2, 2018, Joseph was presiding over Medina-Perez's case in the Newton District Court after he had been arrested four days earlier for drug possession and being a fugitive from justice in Pennsylvania.
Medina-Perez, a Dominican migrant, had been deported from the US once in January 2003 and again in 2007, according to ICE.
Joseph is now assigned to Boston Municipal Court, where she makes $207,855 a year
According to the commission's report, Joseph learned that ICE agents were at the courthouse armed with a 'civil immigration detainer' that would have allowed them take custody of Medina-Perez as a 'deportable alien' if he were released from state custody.
Before the final afternoon hearing, the defense attorney for Medina-Perez allegedly colluded with the trial court officer to let his client sneak out a 'sally-port door' in the lockup downstairs to avoid the ICE agents.
As part of their alleged agreement, the defense attorney would get Medina-Perez to return to lockup after his court proceedings, per the report.
When the hearing began at around 2:48 pm, Judge Joseph agreed to a sidebar conference, where she was allegedly told that the prosecution no longer believed Medina-Perez was the same person subject to the Pennsylvania arrest warrant.
The prosecutor then said she would move to dismiss the fugitive charge and wouldn't seek bail on the drug charges, according to the report.
This gave Judge Joseph two options: release Medina-Perez on his own recognizance or detain him in jail until trial.
After discussions between Judge Joseph, the defense and the prosecution, Joseph allowed for a scenario where Medina-Perez was able to escape the Newton District Courthouse (pictured), according to the commission's report
Joseph faced questioning after the incident and was 'less than fully candid,' the commission said
The defense then told Joseph that 'if he’s bailed out ... ICE will pick him up,' the report claims.
Joseph is said to have responded by saying: 'ICE is gonna get him?' and 'What if we detain him?'
After this, Joseph ordered the session clerk to shut down the courtroom recording system and proceeded to have a roughly 52-second off-the-record conversation with the defense and the prosecution, according to the report.
Joseph's statements inquiring about ICE and asking about detaining Medina-Perez gave a 'reasonable impression' that she was allowing him to evade the ICE agents that were in the lobby waiting, the commission said.
Ultimately, Joseph granted the defense's request to let Medina-Perez go downstairs to the lockup, where he exited through the sally-port door at around 3:01pm, the commission said.
'Judge Joseph was less than fully candid... n failing to explicitly acknowledge that she had conducted part of the hearing off the record,' the commission stated, adding that she also didn't immediately relay that she had granted the defense's request to let Medina-Perez go downstairs.
Boston-area ICE officers ultimately arrested Medina-Perez on April 19, 2018, based on his immigration violations.
