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U.S. NEWS Tuesday 19 June 2018

Lawyers, family seek release

of detained pizza deliveryman

By CLAUDIA TORRENS attorney in charge of the for the release of her hus-
Associated Press immigration law unit at the band.
NEW YORK (AP) — The fam- Legal Aid Society, also said "Let him go back to his
ily and attorneys of an Ec- that her client's detention is daughters and me," she
uadorean pizza shop work- "unwarranted" until the cir- said in front of the camer-
er who was arrested while cumstances surrounding his as. "Every day my daugh-
trying to make a delivery arrest are clear. ters ask, 'Why is daddy not
submitted a formal request The 35-year-old married with us?' I demand ICE to
to immigration officials father of two young girls do the right thing."
Monday demanding his im- was arrested June 1 while The 3-year-old girl, Luciana
mediate release. making a delivery to the Villavicencio, spoke at the
Attorneys from the Legal garrison in Fort Hamilton in news conference, saying:
Aid Society, accompanied Brooklyn. A routine back- "Daddy, I hope that an-
by Pablo Villavicencio's ground check revealed gels take care of you and Sandra Chica, center, wife of Pablo Villavicencio, walks with
wife and two small daugh- there was a warrant for his that you are well and that their two daughters as she arrives for a news conference outside
ters, said at a news confer- arrest for immigration law nothing bad happens over federal immigration offices, Monday, June 18, 2018, in New York.
ence that they filed the pe- violations. there." Associated Press
tition Monday. A federal judge temporar- An ICE spokesperson did
The request argues that ily blocked the deportation not respond to a request of our government," John- lavicencio was granted
Villavicencio's detention of Villavicencio, but he will for comment. son said. "As an American, voluntary departure by
causes significant emotion- remain in Immigration and New York City Council my heart breaks." an immigration judge but
al and financial hardship Customs Enforcement cus- speaker Corey Johnson de- An ICE spokesperson has failed to depart by July, as
to his U.S. citizen wife and tody in New Jersey until his scribed Villavicencio's ar- said that in March 2010 Vil- ordered.q
daughters and that the im- case goes to court. rest as a "grave injustice."
migrant has no criminal his- On Monday, Villavicencio's "I am outraged, outraged,
tory and is not a threat to wife, Sandra Chica, stood that the reason (daughters)
public safety. next to his two daughters, Luciana and Antonia are
Jennifer Williams, deputy ages 2 and 3, and pleaded feeling this loss is because

Michigan man sentenced

in gas station clerk's slaying

MUSKEGON, Mich. (AP) — victim in 2016, when police judge. Willis was convicted
A 48-year-old man serving found a gun, rope, hand- last year of fatally shoot-
life in prison for killing a jog- cuffs, syringes and other ing Rebekah Bletsch as she
ger in 2014 was sentenced items in his van. jogged along a rural road
to another mandatory life Reading from prepared in Muskegon County's Dal-
term on Monday for the notes, Willis told Circuit ton Township in 2014. Her
kidnapping and slaying Judge William Marietti that body later was found by
of a Michigan gas station he didn't get a fair trial. He someone passing by.
clerk a year earlier. said he wanted to "set the Willis was arrested in 2016
Jeffrey Willis cried as he told record straight" and "to re- after a teenager said he
a Muskegon County court- lease pent up frustration for tried to kidnap her. The
room that he was innocent what I see is a failure of our arrest jump-started inves-
in the case of 25-year-old justice system." tigations of the unsolved
Jessica Heeringa, who Prosecutor D.J. Hilson said Bletsch homicide and the
went missing in 2013 from Willis showed no remorse disappearance of Heer-
a gas station in Norton and was "probably one of inga. The gun found in his
Shores, near Grand Rap- the most dangerous men" van was later was identi-
ids. Her body hasn't been he had ever encountered. fied as the weapon used
found. "I'm going to sleep very to kill Bletsch. Police also
Investigators said Willis was well tonight knowing that found a computer file titled
linked to both cases after Mr. Willis will never see the "VICS" with Bletsch's initials
he tried to kidnap a third light of day," Hilson told the and her date of death.q