{"id":366356,"date":"2026-10-06T23:40:52","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T23:40:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/366356\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T23:40:52","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T23:40:52","slug":"federal-judge-blasts-ice-agents-for-false-testimony-bogus-warrant-in-wrong-id-bronx-arrests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/366356\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal judge blasts ICE agents for false testimony, bogus warrant, in wrong-ID Bronx arrests"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Trump-appointed federal judge ripped federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents<\/a> for giving false sworn testimony and records to justify the violent mistaken-identity arrests of two men in the Bronx, one of whom was a U.S. citizen they mistook for an undocumented immigrant.<\/p>\n

Long Island U.S. District Court Judge Gary Brown issued his fiery, 28-page ruling on Monday in the case of Dominican immigrant Angel Almonte, one of the two men arrested by the agents.<\/p>\n

Brown called into question the agents\u2019 claim that they busted Almonte by mistake, since the man they said they were actually targeting was five inches shorter and 80 pounds lighter.<\/p>\n

Masked ICE agents arrested Almonte and a second man, Jeury Concepcion, in separate caught-on-video rough take-downs on May 6 in the Bronx, on Decatur and Hull Aves. Concepcion, who was slammed to the ground by masked agents with guns out, is a U.S. citizen.<\/p>\n

\u201cParticularly problematic in this case, the evidence suggests that ICE attempted to support their unsupported misidentification argument through false or misleading documentation and testimony,\u201d Brown wrote. \u201cThe claims of misidentification here prove baseless, the arrests were procedurally deficient and legally invalid, and ICE agents falsified official records trying to conceal their illegal actions, which included significant injury to a U.S. citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MaskedMasked ICE agents arrested Angel Almonte and a second man, Jeury Concepcion, in separate caught-on-video rough take-downs on May 6 in the Bronx, on Decatur and Hull Aves. Concepcion, who was slammed to the ground by masked agents with guns out, is a U.S. citizen. (Court Document)<\/p>\n

Three of the agents involved in the Almonte bust \u2014 Team Leader John Katepodis, Deportation Officer Kevin Brodowsky and Deportation Officer Zamir Yassin \u2014 gave \u201cevasive and apparently perjurious testimony,\u201d particularly when they claimed they witnessed Almonte engaged in hand-to-hand drug sales.<\/p>\n

Their sworn statements \u201cbear all the hallmarks of coordinated fabrication,\u201d Brown said, pointing out that the allegations of drug dealing didn\u2019t show up in any documents or paperwork before Almonte\u2019s bail hearing.<\/p>\n

After Almonte\u2019s arrest<\/a>, ICE agents ginned up a fake arrest warrant after the fact, claiming that he showed up in ICE databases, Brown said.<\/p>\n

That claim turned out to be false \u2014 Brenden Cuni, a Supervisory Detention and Deportation Officer with ICE, ran five searches and found nothing, then processed the warrant and had an officer run those searches again, Brown said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCuni attempted to reconcile these falsehoods by subsequently collecting the information, adding it to those systems and, after issuing the warrant, searching the databases again to \u2018find\u2019 him,\u201d Brown wrote.<\/p>\n

Brown ordered Almonte released on June 26.<\/p>\n

In the case of Concepcion, the ICE team leader, Katepodis, tried to minimize his role at the hearing, saying, \u201cI don\u2019t see how this would be related to me,\u201d even though he was leading the team that made the arrests.<\/p>\n

Concepcion, 19, was walking to a barbershop, apparently unaware of a masked ICE agent holding a gun sideways at him,<\/a> rushing down the sidewalk at him, Brown wrote. The judge called the Concepcion\u2019s takedown \u201cextremely violent,\u201d pointing out that he needed stitches to close the wounds on his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cI turned my back around. I got two guns in my head and everything. They throw me on the floor. I didn\u2019t know what was going on. He ain\u2019t ask me for no ID,\u201d Concepcion told News 12 in May.<\/a> \u201cI\u2019m from New York. I was raised and born here.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of his ruling, the judge put two photos side-by-side, one of the man ICE was looking for, the other of Concepcion.<\/p>\n

Two of the agents testified that they believed their actual target had \u201cdrug charges\u201d on his record. Though their target had been arrested for reckless endangerment and fleeing from an officer, he didn\u2019t actually have any history of drug arrests, Brown said.<\/p>\n

As part of his decision, Brown floated possible sanctions and contempt rulings, ordering ICE to respond to him within 21 days with what steps or disciplinary actions it will take in the wake of his findings.<\/p>\n

Brown \u2014 who first became a magistrate judge in 2011, was nominated by Trump to the federal bench as a district court judge in 2018 \u2014 has sharply criticized ICE in the past. In December, he accused the agency of ignoring court orders<\/a> to release a Jamaican immigrant married to a U.S. citizen whom ICE detained for days inside a \u201cputrid and cramped\u201d holding cell on Long Island.<\/p>\n

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Trump-appointed federal judge ripped federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for giving false sworn testimony and records…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,262,263,266,85,267,9,24,264,12,63,261,265,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-366356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-city","tag-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-county","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-crime","tag-sub-county-region","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}