The case against Edgar Lopez-Duran has been dismissed, but the former New Hartford maintenance worker is still in ICE custody.
Lopez-Duran is the owner of Edgar’s Painting and Carpentry, a business based in Utica. He was hired by the town of New Hartford in March 2024 after the town board created the position of building maintenance worker.
According to the minutes of the town of New Hartford, Lopez-Duran would work 35 hours a week at full-time and “…will write his hours down for work that is done at the library, highway, town hall, parks department, police department, recreation center, etc.” and his work would be overseen by Highway Superintendent Richard Sherman, who would assign jobs as needed.
Lopez-Duran was arraigned on April 24 and charged with third-degree grand larceny and six counts of first-degree falsifying business records for allegedly stealing around $3,000 from June through September of 2025 by falsifying time sheets that reported time worked that was not performed.
Lopez-Duran in ICE custody
On July 22, Lopez-Duran’s lawyer, Frank Policelli, was present at the Oneida County Superior Court in Utica but Lopez-Duran was not. At time of writing, Lopez-Duran is still being held in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Louisiana.
Oneida County District Attorney Todd Carville said before Judge Robert Bauer that the total money that the inaccurate time sheets that Lopez-Duran submitted resulted in a monetary loss of $6,132 and that the “extent of harm” was non-violent in nature and that the money has been since paid back.
“Since the pendency of this case, the town of New Hartford has been made whole,” Carville said. “A cashier’s check with the defendant as the remitter worth $6,132 dated June 11 has been delivered to the town. The people [on July 21] received from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement an order from the immigration judge which shows the respondent’s application for voluntary deportment has been granted.”
Carville said it was his understanding that Lopez-Duran wished for the case to be closed and to return to Mexico.
Policelli took umbrage with the prosecution’s motion, saying that while he had no problem dismissing the indictment in the interest of justice, his problem were three main points.
First was the evidence, which the prosecution said was strong. Policelli disagreed, saying the evidence of guilt was “…the weakest I’ve ever seen in a case in 50 years of practicing law.”
Policelli had argued in a June appearance that in the 18 months Lopez-Duran worked for the town of New Hartford, there were no complaints filed and additionally, jobs that Lopez-Duran had been assigned to do by the town were carried out by his employees and the town was aware.
Policelli’s second point is he has had no contact with Lopez-Duran since he was taken into ICE custody.
“I haven’t seen any correspondence that ICE has sent the people. But I will tell you this. As of last Saturday, I spoke to Lopez-Duran’s son and he said that he spoke with his father and that he had never made a request to go back to Mexico,” Policelli said. “He’s got an immigration lawyer that’s never advised the family that Edgar requested he be sent back to Mexico. So I don’t believe that’s true.”
Finally, Policelli said it was not Lopez-Duran, but concerned members of the community who raised funds and put it up in Lopez-Duran’s name. Policelli requested any instance of restitution be replaced with renumeration, saying that restitution implied that Lopez-Duran “…did something wrong.”
Bauer said he could not change the wording of the people’s motion but went on record saying that, by whatever word is used, the town of New Hartford had been made whole of the disputed sum and granted the motion to dismiss in the interest of justice.
Returning to Mexico?
After court, Policelli confirmed that he had not spoken to Lopez-Duran and that none of his phone calls have been returned and that he had never heard from Lopez-Duran that he wanted to go back to Mexico.
“I have no evidence of that,” Policelli said. “I haven’t spoken to him since he went to Louisiana. He’s got an immigration lawyer, but he never returns my phone calls.”
And, asked what happens next, Policelli said it was out of his hands and that he did his job getting the case dismissed. When asked if he felt justice was served, Policelli said “yes and no.”
“The reasons given for the interest of justice were not the same reasons that I gave,” Policelli said. “But at the end of the day, he didn’t make any factual findings as to whose arguments prevailed in the interest of justice.
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: New Hartford maintenance worker’s case dismissed, still in ICE custody
Reporting by Casey Pritchard, Utica Observer Dispatch / Observer-Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Casey Pritchard, Utica Observer Dispatch | USA TODAY Network
