A Boston judge has held a federal immigration agent in contempt after the officer detained a suspected illegal alien who was in the middle of his trial.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Brian Sullivan detained Wilson Martell-Lebron, who is from the Dominican Republic, last week as he left a Boston court. According to the Boston Herald, the feds say he is “an undocumented immigrant from the Dominican Republic, who’s allegedly named Juan Carlos Baez.”
“Officers with ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston field office apprehended Juan Carlos Baez (aka Wilson Martell-Lebron), a 49-year-old, illegally present Dominican national with prior drug trafficking convictions after he departed the Boston Municipal Court March 27, 2025,” ICE said in a statement, NBC Boston reported.
On Monday, Boston Municipal Court Judge Mark Summerville ruled Sullivan deprived the defendant of his due process rights and a fair trial by taking him into custody.
“I find that Brian Sullivan and other … agents of ICE conspired in a premeditated manner to take the defendant into custody,” WCVB-TV quoted Summerville as saying. “But not just that, to not return him to court for his trial.
“It’s a case of violating a defendant’s right to present at trial and confront witnesses against him,” the Associated Press quoted Summerville as saying. “It couldn’t be more serious.”
Martell-Lebron, who lived in Saugus, was being held by ICE at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility.
“As soon as we were made aware of the detention we contacted ICE and requested his return to court,” the Boston Herald quoted a spokesperson for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office as saying in a statement. “Any claim that we were aware of an attempt to prevent Mr. Martell-Lebron from exercising his right to a trial is false… Federal authorities should not have detained him and interfered with our efforts to hold him accountable.”
Summerville dismissed Martell-Lebron’s making false statements charge before handing down Sullivan’s contempt charge. Federal authorities will handle Martell-Lebron’s immigration case.
“As for what we are calling on ICE to do, we are calling on them to respect the process of the law afforded to all individuals inside of the United States, regardless of their immigration status,” the Boston Herald quoted defense attorney Ryan Sullivan as saying.
“We are calling on them to not seek to uproot and ignore the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 12 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights to have a fair trial, or the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States constitution, guaranteeing due process,” the attorney added. “We can think of no greater failure of the rule of law than the government conspiring to kidnap a person in the middle of their trial seeking to demonstrate their innocence.”
The Massachusetts State Police did not help or obstruct federal agents.
“Participating in such a mission or sharing information about it would be contrary to the Department’s longstanding approach across several state and federal Administrations to these complex situations, which prohibits Troopers from participating in a mission solely to facilitate detention or deportation,” WCVB-TV quoted state Police spokesman Tim McGuirk as saying in a statement. “Our focus remains on working collaboratively with our local, state, and federal partners to prevent, deter and respond to violations of state criminal law for the safety of everyone who lives, works, studies and visits Massachusetts.”
Since President Donald Trump assumed office in January, federal authorities have cracked down on illegal aliens in jurisdictions nationwide, particularly liberal-leaning “sanctuary cities.” That agents would target a defendant in Boston is no surprise, considering that border czar Tom Homan said in February that he was “coming to Boston and I’m bringing hell with me,” The Daily Mail reported.