Dane County Sheriff Battles ICE for Custody of Homicide Suspect
Judge orders Honduran immigrant Noelia Martinez-Avila to be transported back to Dane County for prosecution.
Crime Scene Tape. (CC0 Public Domain)
A woman accused of killing two teenagers while driving drunk is back in the Dane County Jail after briefly being held in an immigration detention facility.
Noelia Martinez-Avila was charged with multiple felony counts of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle after she was involved in a crash on July 20, which resulted in the deaths of two Minnesota teens.
Noelia Martinez-Avila is accused of causing the deaths of two teenagers from Minnesota by crashing into them head-on while driving drunk on the wrong side of a highway north of Madison. The Dane County Sheriff’s Office rejected an ICE detainer aimed at facilitating her deportation from the U.S. Photo courtesy of the Dane County Sheriff’s Office
Martinez-Avila became the center of a custody battle between the Dane County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which said she is from Honduras and in the U.S. illegally. On July 22, Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett denied an ICE detainer request, which prompted ICE Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin to accuse Dane County of being a “sanctuary jurisdiction.”
At the time, a statement from Barrett said deporting someone before they face trial “allows them to evade accountability — it’s essentially a ‘get out of jail free’ card.”
On Aug. 13, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Martinez-Avila’s attorney posted a $250,000 bond and she was released from the Dane County Jail and arrested by ICE. Another release from the federal agency said the sheriff’s office gave ICE “less than an hour to make the arrest” but agents “nabbed” Martinez-Avila just the same.
The ICE arrest was made possible, in part, because the Dane County Sheriff’s Office notified agents of her pending release, according to a spokesperson for the department. In a statement sent after the ICE arrest, Barrett said it was part of standard “policies and procedures.”
“I stand by my previous statements regarding crime victims deserving their opportunity for justice,” Barrett said. “Still, I am fully aware that, as Sheriff, certain aspects of the justice system are beyond my control.”
Following the ICE arrest, Martinez-Avila was moved to the Waukesha County Jail, which serves as an ICE detention center. That led to a flurry of motions from prosecutors in the criminal case to raise her bail in order to get her back to Dane County. An emergency motion filed by Assistant Dane County District Attorney Alexandra Keyes said Martinez-Avila was facing “deportation in the immediate future.”
“In order to hold her accountable for these crimes against her and comply with victim’s rights, the State is requesting an emergency order either revoking the defendant’s bail or an order to return her to our jurisdiction,” Keyes said.
The motion also claimed Martinez-Avila was in violation of her original bail conditions because the Dane County Sheriff’s Office released her without placing a GPS and alcohol monitor on her. The sheriff’s office denied that claim and said it’s common for GPS monitors to not be placed on defendants when they’re taken directly to another jail.
Neither Barrett nor ICE officials have commented on Martinez-Avila’s return to the Dane County Jail.
Woman charged with homicide removed from ICE facility and returned to Dane County Jail was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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