An Obama-appointed judge in Michigan openly praised a violent Honduran illegal alien convicted of sexually assaulting a woman who has cerebral palsy and refused to extend his sentence for multiple illegal re-entries.
U.S. District Judge Judith Levy’s lenient ruling and comments from the bench have prompted backlash from the Trump administration, scathing social media posts and editorial comments from various news outlets.
Levy is also under fire from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit, which appealed the sentence for 30-year-old handyman Edys Renan Membreño Díaz, The Detroit News reported.
Díaz, a criminal illegal from Honduras, was caught sneaking into the U.S. at least seven times since 2019. He was convicted of raping and sodomizing a woman who has cerebral palsy and cognitive delays after attacking her in her apartment building’s laundry room.
After being sentenced three years ago for the sex crime, Díaz could be released from a Jackson prison as early as July 2028. Levy declined to add two more years to his sentence related to his illegal entry into the U.S.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called Levy’s actions “truly wicked” on her X account.
Unspeakable Depravity.
Edys Renan Membreño Díaz, a criminal illegal from Honduras who illegally entered our country 7 times, was convicted of raping and sodomizing a woman who has cerebral palsy and cognitive delays. He attacked her and dragged her into her apartment building’s… pic.twitter.com/wrsMcP2jDE
— Tricia McLaughlin (@TriciaOhio) December 13, 2025
“Unspeakable Depravity,” McLaughlin wrote, citing a report from The Detroit News. “The U.S. District Judge Judith Levy refused to sentence him to 2 more years for immigration crimes and called this monster a future ‘ambassador for living up to our immigration restrictions.’”
Judge Levy, appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2014, went on to praise Díaz for “family devotion and willingness to perform work that it claimed Americans find undesirable,” McLaughlin added.
The Detroit News first reported on Levy’s decision, adding its own commentary: “The case represents an extreme departure from punishment for a man caught sneaking into the U.S. at least seven times and illustrates the tension between a Republican-led crackdown on illegal immigration and a judge nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama in 2014.”
Díaz has several run-ins with federal agents prior to his arrest in July 2022, when he was charged with criminal sexual conduct by the Southfield Police Department.
Border Patrol agents first encountered Díaz in February 2019 in El Centro, Calif., about 12 miles north of the Mexican border, and he was flown home.
In August 2020, he was arrested again in California and sent back to Mexico. Two months later, Border Patrol captured him near San Diego and removed him to Mexico.
Four months later, in February 2021, he was arrested in Chula Vista and deported to Mexico. Four months later, he was captured again near El Paso, Texas, and kicked out of the country.
Forty days later, he was arrested in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, and deported to Mexico. Following another removal in July 2021, he snuck back into the U.S. and headed to Michigan for a $1,000-a-week construction job, according to court documents.
On average, the sentence for similar defendants convicted of immigration crimes nationwide is 19 months, which is what Díaz’s lawyer requested to run concurrently to the 6-15 years Díaz is serving in a state prison for the sex crime.
Díaz spent five months in federal custody while the immigration case was pending, which Levy deemed was enough punishment. She declined to extend his sentence for illegally re-entering the country before committing the sex crimes, The Detroit News reported.
He pleaded guilty to three sex crimes and was sentenced to 6-15 years in a Michigan prison in October 2022.
After pleading guilty to sneaking into the U.S., Díaz appeared before Levy for sentencing Aug. 5 related to the illegally re-entry charges.
“I usually have almost no hope that a prosecution of this nature will discourage other people but in your unique case, you have expressed that you will be an ambassador for living up to our immigration restrictions and that you will communicate your experience to people back in Honduras and discourage them from coming here without documentation,” Levy said during his sentencing in August.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan is appealing Diaz’s lenient sentence and pushing for a stronger punishment. Prosecutors filed the appeal in October with the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The circuit is based in Cincinnati and oversees federal appeals in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.
The Washington Examiner reported that prosecutors argued the judge made several mistakes and “found her reasoning odd for rejecting the enhanced sentence.”
“It is rare for the government to appeal a sentence as substantively unreasonable, but doing so is warranted here,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Meghan Sweeney Bean wrote in court documents. “Despite six prior removals from the United States, Membreño Díaz returned and raped and sodomized a disabled American citizen. A non-custodial sentence here was an abuse of discretion.”
Levy credited him for repeatedly entering the U.S. illegally to help relatives in Honduras, prosecutors said.
“So I commend you for supporting your family, for expressing your devotion to them and for working here in the United States in jobs that Americans apparently do not want to work in and certainly not for the wages that were undoubtedly abusive of your work for them,” the judge said in court documents.
Levy “never asked (Díaz) if he paid taxes on those wages,” Bean, the federal prosecutor, wrote. “(Díaz’s) decisions to repeatedly flout our country’s laws warranted a higher sentence, not a lower one.”
The judge also failed to consider the “significant harm” Díaz caused to a victim who lacked the capacity to consent, the prosecutor wrote.
Kevin Kijewski, a Republican candidate for Michigan attorney general in 2026, took to social media to write a lengthy post blasting the judge.
“This isn’t justice; it’s judicial activism prioritizing criminals over citizens and spitting on federal law enforcement’s work to secure our borders under President Trump’s leadership,” Kijewski wrote on X.
Sickening Sympathy: This latest ruling from Obama-appointed Judge Judith Levy slaps Michigan crime victims in the face. A violent Honduran illegal alien – who snuck across our border multiple times and sexually assaulted a disabled woman – is praised as a future "ambassador" and… pic.twitter.com/ee7d7o5FD3
— Kevin Kijewski (@KevinKijewski) December 13, 2025
“Michiganders deserve an Attorney General who stands with victims, supports ICE in deporting dangerous offenders, and ends lenient treatment for lawbreakers,” he added. “Radical left policies have made our state a haven for lawlessness, but that’s changing next year.”
Top White House aide and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller also reshared McLaughlin’s post and added his own sentiments on activist judges’ broader motivation.
When foreigners invade our territory and violently rape defenseless women these are war crimes. Democrat judges give them aid, shelter not because they are “soft” but because they support the end game: the forced humiliation, dismantlement, domination and destruction of the West. https://t.co/gU9wXb6hJa
— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) December 13, 2025
“When foreigners invade our territory and violently rape defenseless women these are war crimes,” Miller wrote. “Democrat judges give them aid, shelter, not because they are ‘soft’ but because they support the end game: the forced humiliation, dismantlement, domination and destruction of the West.”
