The Justice Department announced Wednesday it has launched an investigation into the Democratic prosecutor of Virginia’s largest county, following years of complaints from conservatives that his office is too lenient with criminal defendants who are in the country illegally.
Harmeet K. Dhillon, an assistant attorney general and head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a news release that her office sent Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano a letter notifying him of the investigation.
“Under my leadership, the Civil Rights Division will not allow local prosecutors to pick and choose winners based on their immigration status,” Dhillon said in the release. “This investigation will uncover whether this prosecutor is putting the community at risk in offering sweetheart deals to illegal immigrants charged with serious crimes.”
In a statement, Descano acknowledged receiving the letter but defended his policies.
“My policies are fair, legal, and reflect the values of my community,” the statement said.
The announcement came on the same day that the FBI raided the offices and a business co-owned by Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D), who helped drive an effort to pass a referendum allowing for congressional districts to be redrawn so Democrats can gain as many as four seats in Congress.
Democrats questioned the motives of that investigation, noting that the Trump administration has routinely targeted political opponents.
Descano has been attacked by Republicans in recent months over the way he has handled cases involving immigrants. He and Fairfax County Sheriff Stacy Kincaid (D) are scheduled to testify next week before the GOP-controlled House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration integrity, security and enforcement. Parisa Dehghani-Tafti (D), the Commonwealth’s Attorney in neighboring Arlington County, has also been subpoenaed by the committee.
The Justice Department investigation into Descano is focused on whether Descano’s policies are skewed to allow immigrant defendants to avoid deportation, which the department said may have discriminated against U.S. citizens in violation of the Civil Rights Act.
Descano, an Army veteran who leads the largest and busiest prosecutor’s office in Northern Virginia, was first elected in 2019 and reelected four years later, part of a wave of self-styled criminal justice reformers who swept into prosecutors’ offices across the country. He ended the practice of seeking cash bail for defendants charged in Fairfax County and stopped prosecuting some offenses such as simple marijuana possession.
Fairfax County judges occasionally have criticized Descano’s office for mishandling cases, including a 2021 plea deal that allowed a maximum sentence of 17 years in prison for a 53-year-old man who was convicted of sexually abusing a young relative when she was between the ages of 5 and 10. Years later, a judge rejected a plea deal that called for a maximum two years in prison for a defendant from Honduras, Hyrum Baquedano-Rodriguez, who was accused of attempting to kidnap a 4-year-old girl after breaking into her family’s apartment.
“A criminal justice system that cannot protect a four-year-old child in such circumstances is a failure,” Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Randy Bellows said in a written ruling in 2024.
The next year, Descano’s office proposed a similar plea deal for Baquedano-Rodriguez that again called for two years in prison. Another judge rejected that deal. After that ruling, Descano’s office dropped the charges entirely, a decision that the victim’s family called unconscionable. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Baquedano-Rodriguez as he was being released from jail.
An assistant prosecutor in Descano’s office said Baquedano-Rodriguez’s plea agreement was justified because there were “multiple evidentiary challenges inherent in the case,” including that the victim was “only four years old at the time of the offense and described the defendant simply as a ‘big man,’” according to court records. Police arrested Baquedano-Rodriguez after matching a fingerprint found in the apartment to him; he had accumulated six misdemeanor convictions in the previous three years.
In a high-profile murder case this year, Descano’s office struck a plea deal with Juliana Peres Magalhaes that called for time served in jail rather than a prison sentence. Peres Magalhaes, an au pair from Brazil, had pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of her employer, Christine Banfield. The au pair testified as a witness for the prosecution at the trial of Brendan Banfield, the victim’s husband, who was convicted of murder. Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Penney Azcarate rejected Peres Magalhaes’s plea deal and sentenced her to 10 years in prison.
“For far too long, Steve Descano’s office has sacrificed the rights and concerns of crime victims — including children subjected to horrific abuse — to serve its ideological aims,” said Sean Kennedy, president of Virginians for Safe Communities, which has criticized the Democratic prosecutor’s practices for years and led an unsuccessful recall campaign against him before he was reelected in 2023.
“What is sickening is that Descano claims he is protecting immigrant crime victims and witnesses when, in fact, the vast majority of the victims of illegal alien crime are other immigrants,” Kennedy added.
Tough-on-crime conservative groups for months had called on the Justice Department and Congress to investigate Descano’s policies. Dhillon’s announcement that she had started one came amid speculation over what role she might play in the Justice Department’s new hierarchy after Pam Bondi was ousted as attorney general.
Dhillon’s supporters laud the pugilistic style she has brought to her job as head of the Civil Rights Division. From maligning her critics as “hoes” on social media to opening a slew of investigations into DEI practices, state voter rolls and antisemitism allegations, her supporters say she best embodies the aggressive push for top-to-bottom change President Donald Trump has demanded from his Justice Department.
Last month, conservative Republicans homed in on the Fairfax County case of an undocumented high school junior from El Salvador who was convicted on nine counts of assault and battery for groping female classmates in crowded hallways at school.
Both Descano’s office and the defense attorney recommended some jail time and probation for Israel Flores Ortiz, along with a psychological evaluation. Ultimately, the 18-year-old was sentenced to 360 days in the county detention center by a Circuit Court judge, a move the Department of Homeland Security called “a slap on the wrist.”
Jeremy Roebuck contributed to this report.
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