While President Trump promised us that his approach to immigration would rid us of the “worst of the worst” undocumented criminals, the reality is that some of the worst have become the president’s biggest fans. And several have become the biggest admirers of Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the Republican gubernatorial candidate. Wilfredo Blanco Molina is one of their most ardent supporters.
It was 3:40 in the morning of Oct. 27, 2024, when Blanco Molina, driving very drunk and high on cocaine, struck and killed 69-year-old Robert McCarthy in Westbury. McCarthy, who was riding his bicycle, was thrown into a telephone pole. Fleeing the scene of the crime, Blanco Molina was arrested a few minutes later. There was cocaine was in his pocket.
Last September, Blanco Molina entered into a plea agreement with the Nassau County district attorney’s office. In exchange for a sentence of no more than 21 years in prison, he admitted to the serious felonies of aggravated vehicular homicide, manslaughter, assault, aggravated driving while intoxicated, driving impaired, and leaving the scene of an accident. Prosecutors negotiated the plea agreement with the consent of McCarthy’s grief-stricken family.
Blanco Molina must have been amazed and delighted to escape from serving any prison time, thanks to Blakeman’s signing on to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s 287(g) program, which gives county police and probation departments the authority to collaborate with ICE.
As always happens when a defendant is to receive a lengthy prison sentence, Blanco Molina remained in custody after he pleaded guilty, and was taken to the Nassau County Probation Department to be interviewed for the purpose of the preparation of a pre-sentence report. This report is reviewed by the judge before the imposition of sentence.
We are left to imagine Blanco Molina’s pleasant surprise when Blakeman’s Probation Department immediately delivered him to ICE, which sent him back to El Salvador. Blanco Molina was the happy recipient of an unanticipated Get Out of Jail Free card.
This was a staggering abuse to Robert McCarthy, his family and the Westbury community, which I am privileged to represent in the State Assembly.
Our American concept of due process is explicit in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. It is often viewed as a right guaranteed to defendants in criminal cases. That right, however, is much more expansive, and protects every one of us: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Due process means that all of us are guaranteed “equal protection of the laws.” You and I and the McCarthy family were denied equal protection of the laws when Blanco Molina was unfairly freed from the lengthy prison sentence he so richly deserved. The public had the right to know that he had been fairly prosecuted and that he would pay a substantial price for having violated our laws and having taken the life of a fellow American.
Nor is Blanco Molina’s treatment an isolated instance of this gross abuse of Americans’ due process rights. In December, ICE permitted Jeson Nelon Presilla Flores, who had been charged with committing a $100 million jewelry theft of a Brink’s armored truck in Los Angeles, to self-deport to his native South Africa. The heist was believed to be the largest in American history. Flores’s trial was scheduled just days before he got his Get Out of Jail Free card.
Many others now evading prosecution throughout the United States have been given similar beneficial treatment. Sent back to their own countries without serving prison sentences, they are free to return to the U.S. and continue their criminal careers. Trump, and Blakeman, extend them unequal protection of the law, to the prejudice and detriment of the rest of us. We are denied equal protection and due process when those in power help criminals evade prosecution and, when warranted, prison sentences.
Charles Lavine represents the 13th Assembly District.
