A Boston judge accused of assisting an unauthorized immigrant in evading US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2018 is scheduled to face a misconduct hearing.
Judge Shelley M. Richmond Joseph is facing a civil misconduct allegation in connection with the incident in which she reportedly aided Jose Medina-Perez, a Dominican national who had already been deported twice, in exiting Newton District Court undetected.
Joseph has been suspended without pay and is now awaiting a final decision from the Supreme Judicial Court. She is also not allowed back on the bench until the final hearing.
Medina-Perez, who is forbidden from reentering the United States until 2027, appeared in court on drug possession charges and a fugitive warrant from Pennsylvania. ICE agent was waiting outside the courthouse to take him into custody.
Joseph appeared in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston, where the misconduct hearing is now underway. Presiding Judge Denis McInerney noted that he will produce a report explaining his findings and recommendations after the hearings are completed.
At the start of the session, Joseph’s counsel emphasized that her client had not been proven guilty of any crime.
“If you were to walk down the street and take a survey of the people you meet, 100% of them would tell you Judge Joseph let an illegal immigrant out the back door of the district court,” the attorney representing her stated in her opening remarks. “Fifty percent of them would say she’s a criminal and should go to jail. Fifty percent would call her a folk hero for what she gave. But she definitely did it.
“It has become such a part of local lore in Boston that the media, for the most part, have dropped the niceties of alleged or charged, and they report and make references to this incident as if a dozen people had seen Judge Joseph get off the bench, escorted the defendant to the door, gave him a hug and wished him Godspeed,” the attorney for her said.
David Jellinek, Medina-Perez’s attorney, has also testified on cross-examination. According to Fox, he signed an immunity agreement with federal officials in exchange for testifying against Joseph.
Federal prosecutors claimed that Joseph instructed a court clerk to notify the ICE agent present to wait in the lobby, suggesting that if the defendant was freed, he would depart via the courtroom entrance into the lobby. Later, Joseph reportedly told the courtroom clerk to “go off the record for a moment,” which caused the courtroom audio recording to turn off for 52 seconds.
When the audio record was turned back on, Joseph announced that she would free the defendant. Federal prosecutors said in court documents that Medina-Perez’s defense counsel requested to meet with the defendant downstairs, to which Joseph replied, “That’s great. “Of course.”
When the clerk told the judge that an ICE officer was at the courthouse awaiting the defendant’s release, Joseph allegedly replied, “That’s OK. I will not allow them to enter here. But he’s been freed on this,” according to court records.
Prosecutors also said that MacGregor led the defendant, his attorney, and an interpreter downstairs to the courthouse prison. He then used his security access card to unlock the rear sally-port door, allowing the defendant to escape unnoticed.
The Justice Department decided to remove Joseph’s charges in September 2022 after she reported herself to the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct (CJC) and confessed to key facts about the case, Fox claimed.
The Massachusetts CJC filed official accusations against Joseph, accusing him of “willful judicial misconduct” and behavior “prejudicial to the administration of justice.”
The Trump Justice Department has also prosecuted two additional judges for allegedly sheltering illegal aliens or helping them avoid arrest by federal immigration police.
In May, Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested for attempting to shield Eduardo Flores-Ruiz from arrest. Former Doña Ana County Magistrate Judge Joel Cano and his wife, Nancy Cano, of New Mexico, were charged with harboring an illegal alien suspected of belonging to a terrorist-designated gang.