A district attorney in Massachusetts is considering bringing criminal charges against an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent for his “egregious” decision to detain an illegal immigrant outside a Boston courthouse. 

The Suffolk County district attorney, Kevin Hayden, called a press conference Wednesday to address the decision by ICE to detain an individual, known as Wilson Martell-Lebron, in the middle of a trial on Thursday. Immigration officials say his real name is Juan Carlos Baez and that he entered the country illegally in 2000. 

Mr. Hayden lashed out at ICE and called the actions of its agents “unacceptable and unprofessional.”

“This action by ICE was troubling and extraordinarily reckless,” he said. “As the judge noted, ICE’s actions deprived Mr. Martell-Lebron of his right to a fair trial. It also deprived our office of our intent to hold the defendant accountable for his alleged crime.”

The district attorney noted that the judge presiding over the case found an ICE agent involved in the arrest, Brian Sullivan, in contempt “as a consequence of his intentional and egregious violation” of Martell-Lebron’s right to a fair trial and said his office is considering bringing criminal charges.

“We have a lot to go over in this case before we can determine exactly how it is that we’re going to proceed,” Mr. Hayden said.

The showdown and potential criminal charges against Mr. Sullivan come as the Trump administration’s border tsar, Tom Homan, has sparred with Boston officials over their refusal to cooperate with the federal government’s deportation operation. 

Shortly after Mr. Trump’s election, the city’s mayor, Michelle Wu, put Boston on the map as one of the leaders of efforts to resist the new administration. In November, she stated that Boston would “make sure that we are doing our part to protect our residents in every possible way, that we are not cooperating with those efforts that actually threaten the safety of everyone.”

Other local leaders have expressed their desire to defy the administration. Boston’s police commissioner, Michael Cox, indicated in February that the police will not enforce detainer requests from ICE because “we just don’t do that… that’s just not how it works.” Mr. Homan fired back, vowing to visit Boston and bring “hell with him.”

Last month, Ms. Wu was invited to testify about Boston’s  “sanctuary” policies along with the mayors of Denver, Chicago, and New York City. During the hearing, Ms. Wu insisted that Boston would “keep our policies in place.” Republicans accused the mayor of having “blood on your hands” and creating a “sanctuary for criminals.”

During her State of City speech in March, Ms. Wu again struck a defiant tone as she said, “No one tells Boston how to take care of our own. Not kings, and not presidents who think they are kings. Boston was born facing down bullies.” The White House fired back, calling her a “radical mayor” who “doubled down on giving sanctuary to violent criminal immigrants.”

The immigrant at the center of the latest dust-up had faced two felony charges for allegedly submitting a false application for a driver’s license in 2020. Court records show that Martell-Lebron was previously convicted of two counts of trafficking cocaine and one count of trafficking heroin in 2009 and was released from prison in 2020. 

However, his trial was interrupted by ICE agents who detained him outside of the courthouse. Current ICE policy, revised since President Trump took office, states that agents may make arrests “in or near courthouses when they have credible information that leads them to believe [a] targeted alien is or will be present.”

The charges regarding the driver’s license application against Martell-Lebron have since been dismissed by the Boston Municipal Court judge presiding over the trial, Mark Summerville.

“It’s a case of violating a defendant’s right to present at trial and confront witnesses against him,”  Judge Summerville said. “It couldn’t be more serious.”

Lawyers for Martell-Lebron have accused the district attorney’s office and local law enforcement of working with ICE to detain their client. 

During a hearing Monday, an assistant district attorney, Jack Lucy, testified that Mr. Sullivan had shared ICE’s intention to arrest Martell-Lebron. Mr. Lucy said he met with Mr. Sullivan and two state troopers but said he was told that immigration officials would wait until the end of the trial to do so. 

Judge Summerville said in the hearing that Massachusetts State Police troopers tipped off ICE about when Martell-Lebron would be leaving court and insisted, “There was a plan in place.”

However, Mr. Hayden insisted on Wednesday that his office did not know ICE was planning to arrest the defendant in the middle of the trial.

“All of our actions in this case clearly demonstrated our intent to hold Mr. Martell-Lebron accountable. None of our actions demonstrated any collusion with ICE to deprive him of his right to a trial,” Mr. Hayden said. “Any claim that we collaborated with ICE in their actions to remove the defendant from the trial are wholly unsupported by any credible evidence.”

He criticized ICE and said it is “doing the exact opposite” of improving public safety and that his office is now having trouble getting witnesses to cooperate “due to fear of ICE.”

“We will not stand silent while ICE removes defendants in the middle of a trial. We will not stand silent when the fear of ICE stops victims and witnesses from coming forward,” he said. “Interference of this nature, I’m not sure it has ever happened before. And it can’t happen again. We simply can’t have ICE trampling on our criminal legal system.”

The White House and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.