Guillermo Zambrano faced at least 10 years in federal prison if convicted of working with Sinaloa cartel associates — but then ICE sought to deport him last June. Now he faces none.
Zambrano, a Venezuelan citizen in the midst of political asylum proceedings in the U.S., pleaded not guilty to charges of helping conceal drug trafficking proceeds. For 17 months, he remained free on a $60,000 bond with an ankle monitor while awaiting trial in the Central District of California.
But amid President Trump’s immigration crackdown last summer, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers came to Zambrano’s home, removed his ankle monitor and took him into custody. The move surprised everyone, including prosecutors. If convicted, Zambrano would have faced deportation after serving a prison sentence.
When ICE didn’t release Zambrano from custody this month, U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee dismissed the criminal indictment with prejudice, barring the government from refiling the same charges. Gee cited “an ongoing violation of Zambrano’s right to pretrial release.”
The dismissal underscores how the administration’s aggressive deportation push has begun to collide with federal prosecutions and exposes a clash of priorities between the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. In recent months, immigration authorities have taken undocumented defendants into custody, and in at least one case deported the accused, while criminal proceedings were underway.
That case drew outrage because the deported man was awaiting trial in what authorities called the largest jewelry heist in U.S. history: an estimated $100-million theft of a Brinks semitruck’s haul. Prosecutors said they were unaware the defendant had been deported to Ecuador and victims were left indignant, as much of the loot has not been recovered.
“They wanted to deport a million people in the first year and this is how they do that,” said John Targowski, a defense attorney representing Zambrano. “Ultimately we invite the idea that somebody can go out and commit an offense, not be here lawfully and accept pretrial deportation instead of punishment.”
Federal defense attorneys have filed motions to dismiss indictments, citing difficulties accessing their clients in immigration detention centers and, in at least one case, struggling to locate them at all.
In December, a federal judge dismissed with prejudice a separate case against Carlitos Ricardo Parias, a TikTok streamer charged with assault on a federal officer after he was shot during an immigration operation. The judge found that Parias had been denied access to counsel while in immigration detention and that the government failed to comply with discovery deadlines. The government is appealing that order.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice told The Times that “those who enter our country illegally and break our nation’s laws will be held fully accountable for their actions, despite the best efforts of activist liberal judges who would rather see violent illegal aliens walk free.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment. The U.S. attorney’s office in L.A. declined to comment. Prosecutors are appealing Gee’s dismissal order. Zambrano remains in custody at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center.
John Sandweg, who served as acting ICE director under President Obama, said there have been cases over the years involving victimless crimes, where authorities opted for deportation instead of a prosecution, finding that “it’s cheaper, easier, it’s better for the taxpayer.”
But historically, Sandweg said, the agency deferred to federal prosecutions.
“There was a perception that a criminal prosecution is more important from a public safety perspective than a deportation,” Sandweg said. “You have victims who want justice, you have people who maybe are entitled to restitution orders, you have all sorts of good reasons to say, ‘Hey, the criminal prosecution takes priority over the deportation.’”
Targowski said he has two clients facing federal charges currently being held in ICE custody. In the past, he said, “DHS would routinely wait until criminal proceedings were over” before taking a defendant into custody.
“By not doing that or selectively not doing that, I think they’re cutting off their nose to spite their face,” he said. “They’re willing to remove somebody before justice is pursued against them, at the expense of victims.”
In Zambrano’s case, Gee scolded the government over how the detention unfolded.
“This Court joins other District Courts that have concluded that the Executive Branch must choose between taking a noncitizen into custody for the purpose of removing and deporting that individual or temporarily declining to do so while criminal proceedings are maintained against that person,” Gee wrote in her order.
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The charges against Zambrano came into question after his ICE detention on June 24. The following month, an immigration judge denied Zambrano’s request for bond.
In November, Targowski filed a motion to dismiss the charges against Zambrano, or order him released, citing the conflict between his client’s immigration and criminal proceedings and the fact that “he cannot effectively prepare for trial while in immigration detention.”
In response, prosecutors argued in a court filing opposing dismissal that the law “permits the government to simultaneously initiate removal proceedings and criminal proceedings.”
“The existence of ongoing criminal proceedings is not a basis to require ICE to release an individual from immigration custody,” the prosecutors wrote.
They cited Zambrano’s charges, which include conspiracy to aid and abet the distribution of cocaine and methamphetamine and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments. Prosecutors alleged that Zambrano “was observed ferrying bulk quantities of cash drug trafficking proceeds between co-conspirators.”
“In this case, defendant actively worked to launder, transport, and conceal drug trafficking proceeds belonging to the Sinaloa Cartel, whose activities have caused untold devastation in the United States, Mexico, and elsewhere,” prosecutors wrote. “In doing so, defendant intentionally facilitated the financial lifeline that makes the Sinaloa Cartel’s nefarious activities possible.”
At a Feb. 5 court hearing, Assistant U.S. Atty. Jeremy Keller Beecher told the judge the prosecution team’s efforts to undo Zambrano’s detention “were unsuccessful.” Beecher argued Zambrano could eventually be granted asylum and “receive a real windfall” if the court were to dismiss with prejudice.
Targowski told the judge it had been “a real Kafkaesque experience for my client in this case from its origin.”
“We have the inability of the DHS and the DOJ, which are both members of the Cabinet, to effectively communicate with each other as it relates to Mr. Zambrano and that has clearly affected my ability to communicate with him, to represent him,” Targowski said.
Judge Gee told the government she would dismiss the indictment with prejudice unless Zambrano was released from custody within seven days under the conditions of the previous bail order.
“This is not a one-off. This is happening repeatedly,” Gee said, according to a court transcript. “The only way that I can see to effect some sort of meaningful change is for both agencies to see that this is causing friction and that this needs to be harmonized in some way. And without some sort of remedy that makes that clear, it’s not going to happen.”
Gee said she hoped Beecher would “communicate this shot over the bow to those who have the authority to make changes in this regard.”
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The judges are not all aligned in dismissing these cases. On Feb. 12, U.S. District Judge Kenly Kiya Kato denied a motion to dismiss a case against Mandeep Singh, who is charged with wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft.
Singh, a citizen of India who lacks legal status in the U.S., was detained by ICE after a magistrate judge ordered him released on bond. He has been held in Adelanto since November.
Kato found that Singh’s placement in immigration detention has not jeopardized the court’s ability to try him. However, she ordered the government to transport Singh to a courthouse to meet with his attorney, Targowski, and warned about the government’s need to address access issues.
“I imagine if you continue to have these cases, after the government having been put on notice that this is a problem, dismissals are going to become more frequent and common,” Kato said at the hearing in Riverside.
Last Friday, in a downtown L.A. courtroom, Claire Kennedy, a deputy federal public defender, argued for a judge to dismiss the case against her client, Manuel Basmadjian, due to access issues in immigration detention.
Basmadjian was set to go to trial in less than a month on charges including possession with intent to distribute meth and heroin, carrying a firearm during a drug trafficking crime and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
He was ordered released on bond in August, but was instead picked up by ICE and transferred to Adelanto, where Kennedy said her client’s access to counsel “steadily deteriorated.”
In her motion to dismiss the case with prejudice, Kennedy told the judge that for weeks no appointments were available through Adelanto’s online scheduling system. In January, Basmadjian was transferred to ICE detention in Texas, Kennedy said.
“The amount of time I have spent just trying to find Mr. Basmadjian, keep up with the ever-changing rules, keep track of which state he’s in, which facility he’s in — I have spent more time doing that than on the substantive work that needs to be done on his case,” Kennedy told the judge at the Friday hearing.
U.S. District Judge Hernán D. Vera pressed the prosecutor on why Basmadjian had been transferred out of state. Assistant U.S. Atty. Brenda Galván said ICE planned to deport Basmadjian, but Armenia was unwilling to accept him.
“So the government basically has no interest, or at least DHS didn’t have any interest, in having him prosecuted for this crime?” Vera asked.
“The prosecution team in this case is very interested in prosecuting Mr. Basmadjian,” Galván said.
“I’m sure you are, you’ve put in a lot of work for it,” Vera said.
But he questioned why he shouldn’t dismiss the case, given the fact that Kennedy couldn’t meet with her client. “And that’s not her fault, it’s the government’s fault for moving him,” he said.
At the end of the roughly hourlong hearing, Vera said he was granting Kennedy’s motion to dismiss with prejudice, finding a violation of Basmadjian’s right to counsel. Vera stressed that he was not placing the blame on Galván personally, “but the circumstances here are beyond unacceptable.”
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