WEYMOUTH MAYOR ‘IRATE,’ BLASTS COURT IN ICE FLAP
Cops: We gave court detainer for rape suspect
Weymouth Mayor Robert L. Hedlund is blasting Quincy District Court for bungling the case of an Uber driver charged with rape who was here illegally and now is believed to have fled back to his native Ghana.
“I’m absolutely irate,” Hedlund told the Herald. “This woman has to endure this kind of assault. The Weymouth police do a great job in investigating and arresting the alleged perpetrator. We have a situation where someone can just walk out of the country — it’s completely absurd.”
Frederick Q. Amfo, 30, a Ghanian national, was charged with the April 8 early-morning rape of Emily Murray in his Uber car. Murray has spoken out publicly to voice her own rage at Amfo’s release.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and Weymouth police have said ICE agents submitted a detainer for Amfo to police. Weymouth police told the Herald yesterday they passed the detainer on to court officials when they transferred Amfo for his arraignment. Amfo posted $10,000 bail on April 13, the same day he appeared in court. He was then freed on condition he turn over his passport within 24 hours — a procedure the courts have since changed to require passport surrender before a defendant is bailed.
Amfo is suspected to have hopped a flight to Ghana this past weekend.
Hedlund, denouncing the sanctuary movement, said, “If we didn’t take this approach where we want to resist Homeland Security and ICE, had we honored ICE’s request on the immigration detainer, this wouldn’t have happened. And if we had people
in the courts displaying common sense, this wouldn’t have happened. Someone who is in the country illegally, I don’t think that you should have allowed him 24 hours to produce a passport, it should not have been a condition to any release.”
An ICE spokesman has said in a statement: “That detainer should have followed the alien as he transferred from the Quincy Court House. The court chose not to forward the detainer to Norfolk County, allowing for his subsequent release on bail from custody . ... This case highlights the potential dangers of policies that prohibit cooperation with ICE. ICE detainers serve as a legally authorized request, upon which a law enforcement agency may rely, to continue to maintain custody of an alien for up to 48 hours so that ICE may assume custody for removal purposes.”
Weymouth police Capt. Richard M. Fuller said in an email yesterday, “The Weymouth Police received an Immigration Detainer regarding Frederick Q. AMFO from The Department of Homeland Security on April 12th, 2018, and it was forwarded to the District Court with the arrest paperwork.”
Both the Norfolk District Attorney’s office and the Norfolk County sheriff’s office have said they never received any information about a detainer.
But a Trial Court spokeswoman said, “The Quincy District Court did not receive an immigration detainer document for defendant Frederick Amfo. Consistent with court practice, had the Quincy District Court received a copy of an immigration detainer it would have forwarded that detainer to the House of Correction.”
Amfo’s case is the latest evidence of growing tension between state and federal immigration authorities on the heels of a Supreme Judicial Court decision last year. The SJC declared that state officials don’t have the power to detain someone based on a request from ICE alone.
Murray, 30, of Weymouth, declined comment yesterday. However, she has said she is tired of the blame game and her emotional “wound is still very much open and raw.”
Hedlund said Murray has been courageous to come forward to police. But now “she’s got to endure the fact that there is no justice,” he said.