A Moldovan fugitive convicted of murder for torturing and tossing her victim from a ninth-floor window has been nabbed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after more than a decade on the run.
ICE officers arrested Victoria Sorocean, an illegal alien from Moldova, on Nov. 4 in Los Angeles. She is wanted in her home country for murder committed with premeditation and exceptional cruelty, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
She fled her home country to avoid serving a 17-year sentence for the crime and was let into the U.S. ICE learned about her conviction in 2013 and tracked her down in the sanctuary city of Los Angeles.
“These are the types of barbaric criminal illegal aliens ICE is targeting every single day,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “70% of all ICE arrests are of illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S. This does not even include foreign fugitives like this convicted murderer.”
Authorities said Sorocean and an accomplice tortured their victim inside an apartment in Chisinau, Moldova. In September 2013, they were found guilty of beating a victim with a stick and an electrical cable before throwing them out the window from the ninth floor.
The grisly nature of the murder and her arrest made headlines on Fox News and the New York Post.
The Eastern European worked the United States’ immigration system, walking free in the U.S. for more than a decade, despite a previous run-in with ICE.
The agency arrested Sorocean once before on Jan. 10, 2020, under Trump’s first term. However, she delayed her removal through legal appeals and asylum claims, according to DHS officials.
“Sorocean engaged in various legal tactics to avoid removal, including filing multiple appeals with the Board of Immigration Appeals and seeking asylum,” DHS said.
DHS officials said the Biden administration released the convicted murderer back into the country in 2022. Sorocean will remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.
“It shocks the conscience that the Biden Administration released into America a cruel, violent illegal alien who tortured a human being, beat them with an electrical cable and a stick, and then threw her victim from a ninth-floor window,” McLaughlin said. “Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, the world’s criminals are no longer welcome in the U.S.”
Sorocean’s arrest is the latest example of loopholes with the immigration system, especially in sanctuary states. Her case also highlights the failures of the Biden administration, which allowed millions of criminal illegal aliens, to roam free in American communities.
Over the weekend, ICE lodged an arrest detainer for Humberto Munoz-Gatica, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico, who has been charged in connection to a fatal DUI hit-and-run on Nov. 7, in Orange County, California. He ignored a federal deportation order for more than a decade, according to ICE officials.
Police believe Munoz-Gatica was driving under the influence when he struck a 71-year-old pedestrian and then fled the scene. The victim died at the hospital. Gatica faces charges of DUI causing death or bodily injury and hit-and-run causing death or bodily injury.
He had an active deportation order since 2012, and he pleaded guilty to grand theft in 2011. Munoz-Gatica entered the U.S. on a tourist visa that expired on August 1, 2008, according to a DHS news release. ICE arrested him for overstaying his visa on January 18, 2011.
The Obama administration then released him into the country with a notice to appear in court but he never did. Instead, he walked free until his past finally caught up with him last week.
“This illegal alien killed Barry William Tutt, a 71-year-old man,” McLaughlin said. “Unfortunately, Gavin Newsom’s California is a sanctuary state and does not cooperate with ICE. This is yet another example of sanctuary and open border policies putting American lives at risk.”
In another recent case on the East Coast, ICE was finally able to remove a criminal illegal alien involved in the 1994 murder of a Philly teen who was bludgeoned to death on the steps of a church.
ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Philadelphia deported Bou Khathavong, a noncitizen with dual citizenship in Laos and Thailand, and sent him back to Laos on Sept. 2, ICE said in a news release.
ICE Philadelphia named Khathavong as one of the “Worst of the Worst” among ICE’s Most Wanted. Khathavong remained in the country for 30 years, even with a criminal conviction for conspiracy related to the brutal murder of Philadelphia high school student Eddie Polec.
It took years of legal proceedings to remove him, despite the fact that on Dec. 7, 2004, an immigration judge in York ordered Khathavong removed from the U.S. to Laos. Khathavong was released on an order of supervision in 2005.
The former Immigration and Naturalization Service first lodged an immigration detainer against Khathavong on Feb. 14, 1996, at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Philadelphia, ICE officials said.
A Moldovan woman convicted of torturing and tossing a victim to their death from a ninth-floor window was arrested by US immigration officials – years after
Victoria Sorocean was arrested in Los Angeles by US Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) on Nov. 4 after officials learned she was wanted in Moldova for a grisly murder,
Sorocean and an accomplice were found guilty that year of beating a victim with a stick and an electrical cable, then chucking their battered body from the window of an apartment building on to the pavement below.
