Federal prosecutors have abruptly abandoned the criminal case against a Virginia man portrayed by the Justice Department as a major leader of the brutal Central American gang MS-13.
Authorities moved Wednesday to dismiss their prosecution of Henrry Villatoro Santos, whose arrest was celebrated by President Donald Trump, the attorney general and head of the FBI.
Instead, the Trump administration seems poised to seek Villatoro’s quick deportation, despite holding up his arrest as a triumph for the president’s crackdown on violent transnational gangs.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin all appeared before TV cameras during a rare press conference at the FBI’s Manassas, Virginia, office last month to tout the arrest of Villatoro, who officials described as one of the gang’s most senior bosses in the U.S.
Trump called him “a major leader of MS-13″ in a social media post.
He’s “one of the top domestic terrorists in MS-13,” Bondi claimed, adding that he is “very dangerous” and responsible for “very violent crimes” by the gang.
Patel also played it big: “We took down this morning a top leader of MS-13,” he said. “That is not done easily.”
Youngkin described Villatoro as “one of the top leaders of MS-13, living here.”
Later that day, Villatoro, 24, appeared in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, where he was charged with illegal possession of a 9-millimeter handgun.
“You’re going to see a lot more charges on him,” Bondi predicted on Fox News that night, calling Villatoro “one of the worst of the worst.”
Yet, with far less fanfare Wednesday, the Justice Department moved to drop the criminal case, saying simply that the government “no longer wishes to pursue the instant prosecution at this time.”
Instead, it appears the Trump administration intends to seek the alleged gang leader’s immediate deportation.
“As a terrorist, he will now face the removal process,” Bondi said in a statement late Wednesday.
Muhammad Elsayed, his attorney, in a self-described “unusual” motion, asked the magistrate judge who locked up Villatoro not to let the government drop the criminal case yet. Doing so, the lawyer said, might result in a quick deportation of the kind the Trump administration deployed against hundreds of Venezuelan nationals last month, devoid of the due process that the Supreme Court ruled this week was essential.
Villatoro’s attorney noted the array of high profile figures who had trumpeted the arrest.
Even more head-scratching: The judge who ordered Villatoro detained pending trial agreed to keep him incarcerated because of the apparent strength of the government’s criminal case and the likelihood that a conviction would have resulted in a lengthy sentence.