Waltham District Court unable to locate Waltham man ICE detained in August
Victor Ventura Flores was scheduled to appear via Zoom at Waltham District Court for a pretrial hearing on Oct. 22 as a part of an ongoing case against him.
In fact, Waltham District Court Judge Ellen M. Caulo, who is presiding over his case, had previously issued an official legal request to U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to make sure Ventura Flores — at the time in ICE custody — could appear in court.
Ventura Flores, however, didn’t appear for his Oct. 22 hearing.
His attorney, Connor J. Hanlon of the Committee for Public Counsel Services’ Framingham office, told Caulo at the scheduled hearing that he was unable to locate Ventura Flores. Since then, neither court nor public safety officials involved in Ventura Flores’ case have disclosed where he is today — or whether they even know where he is.
The timeline we know
Ventura Flores pleaded not guilty to unarmed robbery and possession of a class B drug at a July 7 arraignment at Waltham District Court following an arrest by Waltham police on July 6.
Caulo on July 7 issued a writ of habeas corpus to Middlesex Jail, ordering jail officials to take action to allow Ventura Flores to appear at Waltham District Court for a probable cause hearing on Aug. 7.
Ventura Flores was held in Middlesex Jail for thirty days following an unrelated probation hearing. On Aug. 7, the court determined that his thirty days were up, and he was released from the courthouse; the court also rescheduled his probable cause hearing for Sept. 23.
Hanlon, his attorney, told reporters that was the last time he spoke with Ventura Flores, who ICE arrested that same day. A spokesperson from Plymouth County Correctional Facility confirmed that ICE agents brought Ventura Flores to their facility on Aug. 7.
Caulo issued a second writ of habeas corpus on Sept. 23, this time to the Plymouth County Correctional Facility to arrange for Ventura Flores to appear for an Oct. 22 pretrial hearing. The writ put Middlesex County Sheriff Peter Koutoujian in charge of making necessary arrangements to ensure that Ventura Flores would appear in court on Oct. 22 and would be returned to ICE custody following the hearing.
A spokesperson for the Middlesex County Sheriff’s Office said he was unable to comment on Ventura Flores’ whereabouts because Ventura Flores was not in custody in Middlesex County and cited legal limits on what the office could share about individuals in detention.
Habeas corpus is a constitutionally protected legal remedy to unlawful detention. Courts can issue writs of habeas corpus to summon someone to appear before them to determine the legality of the person’s imprisonment. Immigration lawyers in Massachusetts have been using it, especially during the past year, to attempt to prevent ICE from moving their clients without their knowledge or input.
According to a Plymouth County Correctional Facility spokesperson, Ventura Flores was in custody at the facility from Aug. 7 to Sept. 25, when agents from ICE’s Burlington Field Office — the agency’s New England headquarters — took him from the facility.
“Immigration just comes and picks them up, and wherever they go after that is beyond us,” the spokesperson said.
Hanlon told Waltham Times reporters that he was able to locate Ventura Flores using ICE’s detainee locator tool on Sept. 25, when he scheduled a Zoom meeting with his client and an interpreter set for Oct. 10. When Hanlon wasn’t able to get into the Zoom meeting, he tried to find his client on the detainee locator, but could not; he called Plymouth County Correctional Facility, who confirmed he was no longer in their custody.
Hanlon added that he has represented many clients who were detained by ICE. He said that he’s never seen any of them return after they no longer show up on the detainee locator.
He added that since his client denies the charges against him, it should be up to a jury of Ventura Flores’ peers from the Waltham community to examine the evidence and give a verdict. He said that currently, they are unable to do so because of ICE’s interference.
“Victor strongly maintains his innocence, and it’s unfortunate that ICE is depriving him of the opportunity to have his day in court,” Hanlon said.
Where Ventura Flores is now
Waltham Times reporters were unable to locate Ventura Flores in the ICE online detainee locator system at multiple points between Sept. 30 and Nov. 5 using his full name, with multiple spelling variations, and his country of birth as confirmed by court records.
A representative on the national ICE detention and removal information line was also not able to locate any information about Ventura Flores’ whereabouts using his name, date of birth, country of birth, and information about the timeline of his case.
According to a spokesperson from the Waltham District Court clerk’s office, when a detainee leaves the Plymouth facility in ICE custody, the individual is usually transferred to another state.
After multiple phone calls to the Burlington ICE Field Office — including two during the office’s hours of operation that went directly to an automated voicemail service — a field office representative told reporters that she could not provide or verify any information but added that if Ventura Flores did not appear in ICE’s detainee locator system, ICE had likely deported him.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s public affairs office has not responded to a reporter’s requests for more information on Ventura Flores’ whereabouts by phone or email.
According to the July 6 police report, Ventura Flores is homeless, though he was arrested with Selvin Ventura Flores of 626 Moody St., Waltham. Reporters went to Selvin’s address and spoke with neighbors but did not receive any information about Victor and were unable to get into contact with any members of Victor’s family.
The broader context
Another defendant represented by Hanlon similarly did not appear in court for a pretrial process on Oct. 22. Hanlon told Caulo that he believed him to be in ICE custody in Colorado.
Hanlon asked that this defendant remain anonymous because his case is still active.
Hanlon filed a motion for a special writ of habeas corpus used when a defendant is in custody under a different jurisdiction. He added that he filed the motion after the Denver Contract Detention Facility said they required a court order for his client to be allowed to appear on Zoom from Colorado. Waltham District Court Judge Mary E. Heffernan accepted the motion, issuing a writ on Oct. 27 summoning the defendant to appear via Zoom on Nov. 17.
Meanwhile, Caulo issued a warrant for Ventura Flores’ arrest on Oct. 22 and suspended activity on the case. She declined a request for an interview.
The Laken Riley Act, a bill passed earlier this year in January, requires federal officials to arrest non-citizens without legal immigration status who are accused of a number of crimes including theft and assault. No conviction is required under the act. It has come under fire from some Democratic lawmakers and immigrant rights’ groups for its lack of due process.
According to an Oct. 16 ICE press release, the agency detained 1,406 people in Massachusetts during the month of September, over 600 of whom had “significant criminal convictions or pending criminal charges … or were known foreign fugitives.”
Jennifer Klein, the director of the Committee for Public Counsel Services’ Immigration Impact Unit, wrote in a statement to The Waltham Times that ICE detentions of people going through the court process has consequences that reach beyond individual cases and clients.
“When ICE detains our clients, it subverts their due process rights and undermines the integrity of the legal system. These actions interrupt ongoing cases, cut off access to counsel, and make it impossible for people to participate meaningfully in their own defense,” she wrote.
“Potential witnesses in criminal matters may also be detained, deported, or intimidated into silence, depriving courts of critical testimony and evidence,” Klein continued. “The result is a legal system thrown into disarray, where constitutional protections are eroded and the fair administration of justice becomes an afterthought.”
Reporting on this story is ongoing.
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This is the act of illegally disappearing people, plain and simple. The unadjudicated guilt or innocence of a person is not to be determined by a band of untrained, violent thugs who physically beat, shoot, and detain people at will with no accountability. They have no right to obstruct due process. None. Every American should be alarmed at these sweeps. No person should be taken away without a trace. This not only goes against established American rule of law; it goes against everything that a civilized society should stand for.
We have all of this attention on the illegal immigrant law breaker! and not a word about the victims of their crimes.
It’s unfortunate that individuals choose to come illegally into the United States of America and lead a life of crime while here. So I really have no sympathy for this individual but let me say this when I had a business on Moody Street a lovely young lady came in she had never been to a tea room before and couldn’t speak a word of English. She indicated to me in Spanish that she was not in the country legally and she does have a job. This was a young woman who came here for a better life absolutely no doubt in my mind, so I led her to a local non-profit for English classes and legal representation.
She came into the country illegally and I absolutely don’t agree with it but this was not a young woman who came here to lead a life of crime she wanted a future. I am still in touch with this young woman and if you knew her you would have done the same thing I did.
I don’t hide that my politics lean right and if you’re in this country illegally you need to leave and do it the legal way like both sets of my grandparents did. They had sponsors and they came here to work and build a life and a legacy for their family and realize the American dream becoming a citizen, buying a home and raising a family in America
A gentle reminder that being accused and arrested for a crime does not necessarily mean an individual has committed a crime. The court is compelled to presume an individual is innocent until *proven* guilty, and when we as individuals (and potential future jury members) fail to do the same, we undermine that ability. Due to ICE’s interference, Ventura Flores was neither proven guilty nor exonerated of the crime he was accused of, therefore it is an unfair characterization to imply he was here to live a life of crime. We simply don’t know, and ICE has actually made it impossible to prove Ventura Flores guilty of any crime. They have disappeared him strictly because someone *thought* he committed a crime, because that’s what an arrest is, it’s saying “We have a plausible enough reason to *think* you broke the law and we would like a chance to prove it.” In this case, ICE has made it impossible to verify whether that is actually true, by disappearing this man off the map, and that’s something that should seriously concern us. It’s unfair to Ventura Flores to assume he is guilty without due process, and also very much against the principles our justice system as written is *supposed* to follow.
this guy was on probation, so he had his day in court. this was his 2nd. case!!!