Gov. Gavin Newsom said California will help the federal prosecutors bring charges against an illegal immigrant expected to be released early from state prison this summer after the Mexican national killed two Americans in a fiery crash.
The Democratic governor’s press office said prison officials will honor a detainer placed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and transfer custody of Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiano to the federal government when he is paroled in July.
“California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will again coordinate with ICE — as they have w/ 10,000+ inmates — to transfer him before release,” the press office said Wednesday.
Ortega-Anguiano’s early release was criticized by the Trump administration, and federal prosecutors immediately threatened to bring hefty immigration charges against the criminal migrant who snuck back into the U.S. despite being previously deported.
“My office has filed a felony immigration charge against this defendant. He faces up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted,” Bilal Essayli, the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said Wednesday. “If the State of California will not seek the full measure of justice against this individual, the Justice Department will.”
Ortega-Anguiano was sent to prison for the high-speed, drug- and alcohol-fueled crash that killed 19-year-olds Anya Varfolomeev and Nikolay Osokin in 2021.
The two victims, who were a couple, were burned alive in the wreckage along Interstate 405 near Seal Beach.
Ortega-Anguiano was sentenced to 10 years.
If California prison officials parole him in July, he would have only spent roughly three years in prison for his conviction.
Ortega-Anguiano, 43, has a lengthy rap sheet that includes burglary, car theft and battery on a spouse with kidnapping convictions.
He was first deported in 2013, Mr. Newsom’s office said, and tried to reenter the U.S. again in 2018 with phony documents.
The criminal was caught by federal officials and recommended for criminal charges over the subterfuge, but was instead ordered for removal.
Ortega-Anguiano came back to the U.S. at an unknown later date and was off immigration authorities’ radar until his involvement in the deadly crash.
