A Honduran man arrested in Jacksonville after Interpol flagged him as a fugitive murder suspect had really been acquitted a year earlier, court records show his lawyer telling a federal judge.
“The Interpol Red Notice, which was publicized in 2022, was never removed after his acquittal in 2024,” Assistant Federal Defender Waffa Hanania wrote in a sentencing memo about client Pedro Danilo Espinoza-Guifarro. “That was the only reason he was targeted for arrest by authorities here in the United States.”
U.S. District Judge Wendy Berger on Nov. 24 sentenced Espinoza-Guifarro, 34, to time served plus seven days for illegally re-entering the country after being previously deported.
He had been locked up since July due to a “targeted enforcement operation” where agents set up surveillance outside his home in a Southside apartment complex, tailed him to a Publix in St. Johns County and stopped his car on San Jose Boulevard in Mandarin, according to a court record.
The case was described by the U.S. Attorney’s Office at the time as part of a federal effort to “repel the invasion of illegal immigration … and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime.”
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement, has also generally emphasized public safety benefits to its actions, emailing a Nov. 19 release about other recent enforcement actions under the heading “Making America Safe Again: ICE Arrests More Murderers, Pedophiles, Rapists and Drug Traffickers.”
Court records say Espinoza-Guifarro acknowledged being in the country illegally, telling agents he had been deported three times. But Hanania undercut the idea that he posed any threat.
“He has not committed any crimes against the people of the United States. He has not harmed anyone while here,” the lawyer wrote in her Nov. 17 sentencing memo. “He has only sought to improve the safety and financial security of his family.”
The memo said the murder charge involved a death at a festival Espinoza-Guifarro attended where bloodshed occurred in December 2021.
“At some point in the evening, a fight broke out over the amount of prize money due to be awarded for a particular contest. Pursuant to court records, it appears that a physical fight broke out amongst many parties. Multiple shots were apparently fired. Mr. Espinoza-Guifarro was detained and accused,” Hanania wrote. “After two years in custody awaiting trial, a three-judge panel in Honduras acquitted Mr. Espinoza-Guifarro of murder.”
Included as an attachment to the memo, Hanania filed a translation of a letter from a court in the Honduran area of Olancho that said Espinoza-Guifarro “has been placed on probation, by virtue of the fact that he has been acquitted of all criminal responsibility.”
Hanania’s memo was filed to request a time-served sentence.
Illegal re-entry can carry a sentence of up to two years behind bars, although time-served plus seven days is a common outcome giving officials a little lead time to prepare for another deportation.
After he’s deported, Hanania told the judge, her client plans to seek visas for him, his partner and three children to emigrate to Spain to start over.
“He will not return to the United States in the future,” the lawyer added.
This story was updated to clarify when Pedro Danilo Espinoza-Guifarro was acquitted.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Acquitted of murder, immigrant in Jacksonville was arrested anyway
Reporting by Steve Patterson, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
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