ARIZ. TO N.Y.: WE’RE FIRST
Won’t send SoHo hotel slay suspect to city until its case resolved
The suspect in a recent grisly SoHo murder will not be extradited to New York until he’s been tried and sentenced for other alleged crimes in Arizona — a lengthy process that could take more than a year — a local court official ruled Monday.
That means a Queens mom and sex worker will be the last of Raad Almansoori’s alleged victims to get justice.
“The local charges by law have to be resolved before anything can happen with your New York case,” Maricopa County, Ariz., Superior Court Commissioner Barbara Spencer said.
Wearing an orange jumpsuit, Almansoori, 26, agreed to go forward with an process in which he’ll wait for Arizona’s governor to issue an extradition warrant after his trial for two stabbing incidents he’s accused of in Arizona.
“It’s just going to trail behind your local charges, so until those are resolved, nothing can happen on the fugitive case,” Spencer said.
Almansoori allegedly bludgeoned and strangled Denisse Oleas-Arancibia of Queens to death last month, afterward traveling to Arizona, where he’s accused of stabbing two women.
Upon being arrested there, the man allegedly told authorities to google the SoHo hotel as the NYPD hunted for Oleas-Arancibia’s killer.
But then grandstanding Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell refused to send him to the Big Apple, saying she didn’t trust Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to handle the case.
“Having observed the treatment of violent criminals in the New York area by the Manhattan DA there, Alvin Bragg, it’s safer to keep him here and keep him in custody so he can’t be out doing this to individuals either in our state or county or the United States,” said the Republican Arizona prosecutor, who’s up for reelection.
Bragg, a Democrat, fired back, accusing Mitchell of playing “political games.” His office did not immediately comment on Monday’s ruling.
Oleas-Arancibia’s body was found in a room at the SoHo 54 hotel on Feb. 8, with a bloody iron next to her and bits of plastic embedded in her head.
Almansoori flew to Arizona shortly after the killing, where, weeks later, he was arrested as a suspect in the attempted murders of the two Arizona women. While in custody there, he confessed to murdering Oleas-Arancibia, 38, and described the killing in graphic detail.
After he’d already fled, NYPD detectives identified him as a suspect from matching up his credit card number from a Burger King receipt found in bloody pants he left in the hotel room where Oleas-Arancibia’s body was found.
“Not a single woman on this planet likes me so I was very upset,” Almansoori allegedly told police when he was arrested.
Almansoori was indicted by a grand jury last week in Arizona and is being held without bond on the charges in the state.
He’s suspected of stabbing an 18-yearold victim multiple times in the neck after following her into a Surprise, Ariz., McDonald’s bathroom and crawling under a stall.
Almansoori is also accused of stabbing a 22-year-old woman in Phoenix in her car. He allegedly had planned to kill his father and stepmother and burn down their house, an Arizona police detective testified last week.