BRIGHTON, Mass. — A Guatemalan national accused of sexually assaulting a Massachusetts child inside a local laundromat has been arrested by federal authorities, who said this week that a Boston court ignored the immigration detainer placed on him.
Sostenes Perez-Lopez, 59, who is in the United States illegally, is charged with two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14. Federal officers arrested him in Brighton on Feb. 18, more than two months after the court released him on bail in December, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement on Tuesday.
ICE served Perez-Lopez with a notice to appear before a Department of Justice immigration judge following his arrest. He remains in federal custody.
“Sostenes Perez-Lopez stands accused of some horrific crimes against a child in Massachusetts,” ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston acting Field Office Director Patricia Hyde said in a statement.
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Perez-Lopez, a construction worker living in Brighton, is accused of sexually assaulting a young girl inside the Express Laundromat on Brighton Avenue in Allston in November, according to the police report.
On Nov. 24, 2024, the girl’s mother reported the alleged sexual assault to Boston Police.
She told officers that while she was doing laundry at the laundromat with her daughter a day earlier, on Saturday afternoon, the girl left her side and went to a table near the entrance. There, the mother later saw an unknown man close to the girl. The mother pulled the girl to her.
The man allegedly told the mother, “Your daughter is very pretty; they are going to steal her,” police wrote in their report.
“Who is going to steal her?” the mother responded to the man, police wrote.
“The dogs,” the man allegedly responded, then left the laundromat.
When the mother left the laundromat with her daughter, and was talking to her daughter about “stranger danger,” the girl told her the man had inappropriately touched her, the police report states.
The girl later told investigating officers that the unknown man’s hands “went inside her pants and touched her private area.”
Investigators from the department’s Human Trafficking and Sexual Assault units later obtained a still photograph of the suspect from surveillance video inside the laundromat. The suspect had been wearing a white “cowboy” hat, black jacket, blue jeans and boots.
Detectives identified Perez-Lopez as the suspect a few days later, on Nov. 27.
Perez-Lopez later walked into the Area D-14 police station asking to speak with investigators, police said. Detectives interviewed Perez-Lopez, who said he does his laundry at the Express Laundromat in Brighton on Saturdays.
He told detectives that on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, he saw an unknown girl that he believed to be 5 years old standing by herself in the laundromat. He instructed the girl to approach him, and told police that he put his left arm around the girl’s waist “and pulled her closer to him” and then said, “Hola.”
Perez-Lopez told police the girl “just looked up at the brim of his white cowboy hat” and didn’t speak to him once. He then saw the girl’s mother call for her daughter to return to her.
“Perez-Lopez said that at no point did he converse with the child’s mother and that the mother never said anything back to him,” police wrote in their report. He said that he remained seated and that the mother gathered her clothes and exited the laundromat with the child.
Investigators seized Perez-Lopez’s laundromat card. He was arrested “as a result of witness and victim statements and evidence obtained during this investigation,” police wrote in their report.
ICE lodged an immigration detainer against Perez-Lopez with the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department, Nashua Street Jail on Nov. 28, 2024, after his arrest for indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, Hyde said.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges during his arraignment in Boston Municipal Court in Brighton on Nov. 29, 2024.
Following his arraignment, the court ordered Perez-Lopez committed to the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department in lieu of posting bail in the amount of $8,000.
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The Boston Municipal Court ignored the ICE detainer and released Perez-Lopez on bail on Dec. 12, 2024, Hyde said. The court fitted Perez-Lopez with GPS with conditions.
According to court documents, Perez-Lopez was released on $8,000 cash bail on conditions including that he stay away from and have no contact with the victim and her mother, that he stay away from and not work with any child under 18, that he stay away from the laundromat where the alleged assault took place, that he surrender his passport and that he stay away from Brighton/Allston except for court business.
The case highlights the ongoing issue facing federal immigration officials who are often at odds with the courts regarding immigration detainers, which are intended to hold foreign nationals who are in the country illegally until federal officers can arrest them.
Massachusetts court officials do not have the authority to hold an individual in custody solely on the basis of a Federal Civil Immigration Detainer, Massachusetts Trial Courts spokesperson Erika Gully-Santiago said in a statement on Wednesday.
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“In order to comply with Massachusetts law, court officers are prohibited from assisting or interfering with ICE agents in executing their obligations under federal law. That means that a court officer will not interfere with ICE arresting an individual who has been released,” Gully-Santiago said. “On the other hand, court officers are prohibited from keeping a released individual in custody awaiting an ICE agent.”
Perez-Lopez illegally entered the United States on an unknown date, at an unknown location and without being inspected by a U.S. immigration official, Hyde said.
In another case, federal authorities said that a Massachusetts court twice ignored an immigration detainer lodged by ICE and twice released a Guatemalan national convicted of assault and other crimes in the Bay State.
Recent ICE arrests of foreign nationals who are in the country illegally have led one community organization in Chelsea, La Colaborativa, to warn locals of ICE raids on social media.
The group told Boston 25 this week it subsequently shut down its main office on Tuesday to prevent incoming visitors from being “targeted” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Hyde, the ICE director, said her agency will continue to prioritize public safety for local residents in Massachusetts.
“We will not tolerate the victimization of our residents at the hands of alien offenders,” Hyde said. “ICE Boston will continue to prioritize the safety of our public by arresting and removing illegally present lawbreakers.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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