Daniel Davon-Bonilla is a Nicaraguan migrant who has been in the country since December 2022. He made his way to New York City where in a matter of months he was accused of raping a trans woman at a migrant shelter.

That really should have been the end of it for Davon-Bonilla. He should have gone to prison for a long time and then been deported. Instead, the victim refused to testify and Davon-Bonilla wound up being released as part of a plea deal for a lesser charge. A couple days after not showing up for his sentencing he (allegedly) raped another woman in Coney Island.

When I wrote about this case a couple weeks ago it wasn't entirely clear how all this had happened but I had a guess:

Once he agreed to a plea deal, he should have been on a plane or bus back to Nicaragua. Why didn't that happen? Probably because New York City refused to cooperate with ICE and ensured this guy would remain on the street to commit another attack. I don't know that for certain but it has definitely happened before.

Today the NY Times has a story about the case and it seems to confirm my hunch. No one notified ICE even though, legally, they were allowed to do so because of the seriousness of the crime involved.

The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE, had informed the city that it intended to deport Mr. Davon-Bonilla when he was first charged with rape, the agency said. But neither the city nor the Brooklyn district attorney notified federal officials when he was released that day in June.

Mr. Davon-Bonilla did not show up for his sentencing on Aug. 9. Two days later, the police say, he raped a homeless woman under the Coney Island boardwalk.

New York is a so-called sanctuary city, one of several across the United States that try to minimize the deportation of migrants. In practice, this means that local law enforcement officials limit their coordination with federal immigration authorities.

There are some wrinkles in this story. First, ICE claims it sent a detainer request to the Corrections Department when Davon-Bonilla was first charged with rape but the Corrections Department claims it doesn't have one regarding this case.

The other issue here is that because the victim in the first case wouldn't testify, the charges were dropped from rape down to second-degree assault. In June of this year Davon-Bonilla pleaded guilty and was released prior to his sentencing in August. He was probably going to get time served because he'd already been at Rikers for about 15 months. But as mentioned, he didn't show up for his sentencing and two days later he was arrested for another rape, this time of a homeless woman in Coney Island.

John Chell, the Police Department’s chief of patrol, said this about the case: "Failing to act enables individuals like Daniel Davon-Bonilla to continue victimizing women in our city." That seems to be what happened here. John Sandweg, a former acting director of ICE told the NY Times, "If someone is charged with rape, you’re jeopardizing public safety."

What should have happened here is that when Davon-Bonilla pleaded guilty, ICE should have been notified he was going to be released. There are 177 serious crimes which, even in NYC, stand above the sanctuary law. The second-degree felony assault Davon-Bonilla pleaded guilty to is one of those. So why didn't someone notify ICE? That's still a mystery, but the Brooklyn DA's office said it wasn't their job.

Prosecutors did not tell ICE about Mr. Davon-Bonilla’s plea deal or his release. The Brooklyn district attorney’s office, which in 2017 said it would change its practices to protect immigrants, does not generally divulge such information to federal officials, Mr. Yaniv said...

Mr. Yaniv said prosecutors had not known that the defendant was subject to deportation, but that immigration was not the district attorney’s responsibility. “Even if we had 20/20 vision, it wouldn’t have changed anything,” he said.

In other words, even knowing Davon-Bonilla went on to rape again, they have no regrets. Their view is that the processing of cases is public and if ICE wanted Davon-Bonilla it should have paid closer attention to his case. ICE points out it has thousands of cases across the country at any given time and can't keep up with new developments in all of them. 

A courtesy call from the DA's office would likely have prevented another serious crime. You have to believe that if it weren't for the general anti-ICE views of the DA and Democrats in New York, that call would have been made.