A Manhattan judge on Monday issued an arrest warrant for a young mother convicted of participating in a January 2024 melee between a group of migrants and NYPD officers when she didn’t appear for sentencing.
The warrant was issued against Edgarlis Vegas, 22, who pleaded guilty to second-degree assault in October for kicking an officer during the clash that took place Jan. 27, 2024 and was released from custody on Rikers Island the same day to give birth. Two weeks ago, she attended the sentencing of her partner, Marce Estee, who was also charged in the case, with their baby. Estee received a two-year term for kicking an officer during the incident.
Vegas’ attorney, Eric Ross Bernstein, said he was not at liberty to comment when asked by the Daily News whether the Venezuelan national had run into trouble with federal authorities amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration. A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) did not immediately respond to The News’s inquiries.
A spokesman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case, said the office was unaware of Vegas’ status.
The president of the Police Benevolent Association NYPD union, Patrick Hendry, who attended Monday’s proceeding, called for Vegas’s deportation in remarks to reporters, declining to address what he believed should happen to her baby, a legal U.S. citizen. President Trump has attempted to bring an end to birthright citizenship by executive order, an effort a federal judge in Seattle last week called “blatantly unconstitutional.”
“They should have been held, and they should have done their time, and they should be deported,” Hendry said.
The brawl provoked national attention and alarm in conservative media over “criminal migrant gangs” after surveillance footage released by the NYPD showed a group of men laying into two officers outside a shelter on W. 42nd St. near Seventh Ave. Police said the skirmish began when the group refused police orders to disperse from blocking a sidewalk. The officers involved, NYPD Lt. Ben Kurian and Officer Zunxu Tian, sustained minor injuries.
As the footage went viral, Bragg’s office came under fire when a criminal court judge released several of those involved without bail, and reports claimed those not yet arrested had fled the state, which turned out to be false.
Police-worn body camera footage released weeks after the Times Square fight painted a fuller picture than what was initially said to have occurred, showing the men complied with the dispersal order and that officers instigated the altercation when one of the suspects involved, Yohenry Brito, told Lt. Kurian he resembled the protagonist from the TV show “Ugly Betty.”
Kurian then grabs Brito by the scruff of the neck and throws him against a wall, and the two men go tumbling to the ground, the footage shows. Officer Tian intervenes, and several of those present with Brito descend on the two cops and repeatedly grab and kick them as they grapple on the ground.
When the suspects appeared in court to be arraigned on felony charges, Bragg’s office sought high bail sums as high as $100,000 for all involved.
Yorman Reveron pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and petit larceny for grabbing one of the officers, pulling him away from the struggle with Brito, and pushing both cops to the ground. He was sentenced to a two-year term the same day as Estee.
Ulises Bohorquez pleaded guilty to second-degree assault in August and is due to be sentenced Monday. Kelvin Servita Arocha, 20, pleaded guilty to obstructing governmental administration for kicking an officer’s radio during the incident. He received a jail term of five months and 25 days.
Darwin Gomez pleaded guilty to second-degree assault for kicking one of the officers and received a 364-day jail term. ICE authorities deported him before he’d finished his sentence in October.
Assault charges against Brito are still pending, as are charges against Wilson Juarez for allegedly tampering with physical evidence. Juarez faces up to four years in prison if found guilty of the charges, alleging he watched the altercation unfold and then changed his sweater after leaving the scene. An additional case against a minor was resolved in family court.
The Trump administration has followed through on the president’s vow to deport undocumented immigrants en masse at breakneck speed, citing 956 arrests and 554 detainers lodged as of late Sunday. The aggressive response nearly resulted in a trade war with Colombia over the weekend when the country’s president refused to accept a U.S. military aircraft carrying Colombian deportees amid allegations of inhumane treatment by U.S. authorities and claims shackled and handcuffed deportees were being denied water and bathroom use.
New York’s sanctuary city status means that the feds cannot arrest undocumented immigrants facing state-level charges at court appearances — or on their way to and from court — without a warrant. Trump’s Department of Justice has pledged to challenge sanctuary laws and last week threatened to prosecute local or federal authorities who do not fall in line with his policies.