Trial, deportation for woman accused of DUI, injury to child
Published at | Updated at
REXBURG — Immigration officers were on hand in district court Monday, April 25, to arrest — and possibly deport — an undocumented woman charged with several crimes.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, Maria Guadalupe Maciel of Blackfoot, was arrested by the Madison County Sheriff’s Office, following her arraignment, on felony charges of aggravated DUI and injury to a child.
The felony charges stem from a car accident involving Maciel and a then-2-year-old child in mid-November. Madison County Prosecutor Sid Brown told the court the child suffers permanent disfigurement from injuries in that accident. The child’s father was also injured in the accident. Mariel’s blood alcohol level after the accident was measured at .24, three times the legal limit.
Maciel pleaded not guilty to both felony charges.
Bond increased
During the arraignment Brown requested the state increase Maciel’s bond to $150,000, due to the fact that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was planning to arrest Maciel. He told the court that immigration officers had a warrant for Maciel’s arrest and were in the courtroom ready to take Maciel into custody to start the deportation process.
The bond needed to be raised so that Maciel would again be in the custody of Madison County Sheriff’s Office, Brown said. She had been released from Madison County Jail on April 11 after paying a $35,000 bond.
Brown told the court that increasing Maciel’s bond would resolve several potential conflicts: If Maciel was to be in custody of the Madison County Sheriffs Office, immigration officers could not take her into custody at that time, meaning Maciel would have to answer to the charges against her first before being deported. An immigration hold would also be placed on her, meaning if she bonds out, is released or — if she’s convicted — when she completes her sentence, she will be placed in the custody of the immigration court and deported.
After much discussion, District Judge Greg Moeller chose to raise the Maciel’s bond to $100,000 and ordered that she be placed in the custody of the Madison County Sheriff’s Office.
Not the first time
Maciel has been the subject of a deportation hearing once before, at that time she was ordered to stay out of the United States for 10 years, which Maciel violated by either not leaving or returning within the time frame, immigrations officials said. She also served a brief jail sentence in Bonneville County for a misdemeanor DUI in February.
Mariel’s next court appearance will be a pretrial conference in August.