(This as dumb as it gets. The Sheriff is co discouraging people to report violent crime incidents. We know policing doesn’t not tend to attract very intelligent people, see the case of Johnson vs the City of New London Connecticut but this is totally counterproductive.)
“He went to report crime to an upstate NY sheriff. Instead, ICE arrested him
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Courtesy of Julio Ipina Hernandez
Julio Ipina Hernandez texted a detective from the Putnam County sheriff’s office in December saying he wanted to report alleged drug and sex crimes.
But when Ipina Hernandez went to meet with the detective on Jan. 6, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were waiting for him, and arrested him on the spot because he lacked legal immigration status. He ended up spending nearly two months in ICE detention.
S. Michael Musa-Obregon, Ipina Hernandez’s attorney, claimed in a petition to a federal judge that the sheriff’s office coordinated with federal authorities in a “ruse” to lure the 34-year-old Guatemalan immigrant into ICE custody. Musa-Obregon wrote in court documents: “The police investigator never intended to take a complaint and instead weaponized [Ipina Hernandez’s] cooperation to engineer his arrest.”
Sgt. Michael DiVeglio, a spokesperson for the Putnam County sheriff’s office, denied any impropriety in the detective’s handling of Ipina Hernandez’s case. DiVeglio said, “There definitely wasn’t a ruse that was fabricated by our investigator. He was acting well within the scope of his employment and the investigation.” A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, confirmed Ipina Hernandez’s arrest by ICE but declined to provide more information.
Immigrant advocates say Ipina Hernandez’s ordeal illustrates their long-standing concern that collaboration between local law enforcement and federal authorities on immigration enforcement does community harm: It deters immigrants without legal status from reporting crime, out of fear that stepping forward could lead to their own detention.
Ipina Hernandez told Gothamist in an interview, “I definitely do not trust the police – that they will do the right thing.”
A federal judge in February ordered Ipina Hernandez’s release, saying he was not subject to mandatory detention, as the federal government claimed. Judge Vernon Broderick wrote in a Feb. 22 opinion: “‘There is nothing to suggest that DHS exercised any discretion at all in detaining” Ipina Hernandez.
The case arises as state lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul debate proposals to limit cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration officials statewide. The effort is driven partly by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, which has spurred nationwide protests and thousands of legal challenges like Ipina Hernandez’s.
New York City generally prohibits city officials from cooperating with federal immigration officers, unless provided with a judicial warrant. State officials, including state police, are also generally barred from sharing information with ICE unless legally required to do so. State lawmakers are looking to extend similar protections to local law enforcement agencies across the state.
Hochul recently unveiled a proposal that would prevent local police from sharing information about an individual with ICE unless that person has been convicted of a crime, or there’s probable cause to believe they committed a crime. Immigration advocates are instead pushing for the more sweeping New York for All Act, which would generally ban cooperation and communication between state and local police and ICE, unless there is a judicial warrant.
The measure also requires, among other things, that when immigration officers ask to interview someone in police custody, the person is advised they aren’t required to cooperate, and that they have the right to have an attorney present during the interview.
“That’s why we need New York for All to be passed in this moment — because it would prohibit this type of collusion from ever happening, or even giving people the thought it would happen,” said Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the statewide nonprofit New York Immigration Coalition, about Ipina Hernandez’s case.
The meeting and an arrest
Ipina Hernandez, who has lived in the United States for over two decades, has mainly worked as a Spanish translator in the last decade in Westchester County and Vermont, according to court documents. He started a company, called White Flamingo LLC, through which he accompanies immigrants to doctor appointments and lawyer offices, and helps them obtain workers compensation benefits, apply for drivers’ licenses, and get Social Security benefits, according to the records.
Ipina Hernandez told Gothamist in an interview that, during his work, he had witnessed evidence of drug and sex trafficking at a horse farm in Danbury, Connecticut, in 2020 — an operation that he said extended into Dutchess, Westchester and Putnam counties in New York. He said he worried at the time about reporting the information to the police because of potential retaliation and his lack of legal immigration status.
Ipina Hernandez said he later decided to step forward after doing research online and learning that criminal informants can receive special visas or green cards for cooperating with police. He said he reached out to the New York State Police about the alleged crimes in 2024, and they set up a meeting with Homeland Security Investigations officers but no one followed up. DHS officials declined to comment, and state police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In December, though, Ipina Hernandez reached out to Kevin Radovich, a detective his brother was communicating with about a separate matter, according to text messages obtained by Gothamist through a Freedom of Information request to the sheriff’s office and separately from Ipina Hernandez.
Over text, Ipina Hernandez made it clear: He was hoping to become an informant and get some kind of immigration benefit in return. Radovich, a member of a Homeland Security Investigations task force for child pornography, told Ipina Hernandez he could “make some calls on that,” but he said he didn’t have direct information on immigration issues, as, he texted, “local police are not allowed to be involved in immigration in New York.”
Ipina Hernandez and Radovich set up a time to meet at a nearby Home Depot parking lot, when the detective would also be meeting with Ipina Hernandez's brother, according to the text message. Ipina Hernandez said he thought they would discuss the next steps for becoming an informant.
But he told Gothamist that Radovich had notified DHS agents about their meeting without his knowledge. According to DiVeglio, the sheriff’s office spokesperson, the detective reached out to DHS because he knew Ipina Hernandez had reached out to them previously, and that Ipina Hernandez knew DHS officers would be at the meeting.
When Ipina Hernandez arrived at the Home Depot parking lot, he said the detective was already there. He got in the passenger seat, and spoke with Radovich. Minutes later, ICE officers opened the passenger door and asked him to step out of the vehicle. As Ipina Hernandez, a father of three, exited the car, he said he began to cry. He said he was thinking about his children and what would happen if he was detained or deported.
After his arrest, he was transported to Orange County Correctional Facility, and later the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
In court proceedings, federal attorney Charles Salim Jacob confirmed what Ipina Hernandez had suspected — his “arrest stemmed from information provided by a local sheriff’s department to ICE.”
Salim Jacob added: “There is no factual dispute that the respondent [Ipina Hernandez] believed he was meeting with the sheriff’s office to report criminal activity at the time of the encounter.”
No criminal convictions, per attorney
When asked about the arrest, a DHS spokesperson in a statement cited criminal charges in Ipina Hernandez’s past. In court documents, his attorney, Musa-Obregon, said that Ipina Hernandez has no criminal convictions.
Musa-Obregon acknowledged there were other lesser charges, but said they had been expunged and placed under seal. Ipina Hernandez also has pending nonviolent misdemeanor charges stemming from an interaction with an officer after being pulled over for a minor traffic violation in March 2025, Musa-Obregon wrote in court documents. He was charged with obstructing governmental administration, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and changing lanes unsafely, according to law enforcement records.
In that case, Musa-Obregon wrote, a local court in Putnam County set his bail in the case at zero, deciding that he was not a flight risk or dangerous. The lawyer said he never missed a court date in the case until he was arrested by ICE and he continues to contest those charges.
Putnam County’s anti-sanctuary stance
The Putnam county executive, Republican Kevin Byrne, has made it clear that he encourages collaboration with ICE, though the Putnam County sheriff’s office doesn’t have any formal agreements with the agency, according to DiVeglio, the sheriff’s office spokesperson.
When the Trump administration last year placed Putnam County on its list of so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions, Byrne recoiled at the label. While there’s no official definition of what constitutes a sanctuary city or state, generally sanctuary policies limit the extent to which a local or state government will cooperate and share information with ICE.
“Let’s set the record straight: Putnam County is not a sanctuary county and never will be on my watch as county executive,” he told The Highlands Current, a nonprofit newspaper covering the Hudson Valley.
Still, the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office manual acknowledges a need to allay the fears of crime victims and witnesses without legal immigration status.
The manual says, “to encourage crime reporting and cooperation in the investigation of criminal activity, all individuals, regardless of their immigration status, must feel secure that contacting or being addressed by members of law enforcement will not automatically lead to immigration inquiry and/ or deportation.”
The manual bars sheriff’s deputies from detaining people for civil violations of federal immigration laws; however, deputies are allowed to detain people for criminal immigration offenses and transfer them into federal immigration custody.
Immigration authorities are moving forward with the legal process to deport Ipina Hernandez, despite his release from federal custody, his lawyer said. He was denied asylum in immigration court earlier this year, a decision he is appealing, according to his attorney.
While he was detained, Ipina Hernandez said he missed car and credit card payments, and added on debt. He lost translation and interpretation clients. His 7-year-old son has special needs — learning disabilities as well as trouble walking and speaking — and had difficulty eating and sleeping due to anxiety while his father was in detention, Ipina Hernandez said. Now, Ipina Hernandez says he has similar difficulties.
“I have a very hard time sleeping, thinking of all the credit card debts — and how I’m going to continue making payments. My property tax. Mortgage,” Ipina Hernandez said. “If I have to go to Guatemala, I don’t know what would happen to my kids. It’s very stressful for me.”
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