WHY WAS HE EVEN IN AMERICA?
Slay suspect dodged deport for 11 yrs.
The prime suspect in the murder of a Rikers Island guard is an illegal immigrant with a lengthy rap sheet — whom US officials have failed to deport over the last 11 years, The Post has learned.
Keon Richmond, 32 — who entered the US from Trinidad in 2001 on a tourist visa before overstaying and racking up a slew of criminal charges — was first discovered by federal agents while serving prison time for assault in 2005, according to court papers.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents visited him at an upstate prison, and he claimed to be a US citizen born in Brooklyn, the court papers show.
But authorities discovered he had a Trinidadian passport and birth certificate, and he was referred to Homeland Security for “removal” proceedings in December 2006.
He admitted to a judge he was a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, and unsuccessfully argued against deportation, claiming he was married to an American, the papers say.
The case went to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which in 2012 upheld the decision.
During that long period, his assault case was overturned in 2007, he was released from prison — and he was allowed to roam free.
Richmond took his case to the US Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit, which kicked it to the US Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review.
On July 28 this year, a panel at that office upheld the findings and dismissed his appeal, the papers say.
Less than three months later, he allegedly torched a girlfriend’s car in Brooklyn on Oct. 13 — and was busted for that crime Thursday and charged with arson.
Police sources have said Richmond is also the sole suspect in the murder of another ex-girlfriend, correction officer Alastasia Bryan (inset), 25, who was gunned down in a car outside her mother’s Brooklyn home on Dec. 4. Police have yet to charge him with that crime.
At Richmond’s arraignment Thursday in Brooklyn Criminal Court, Assistant DA Michelle Kaminsky asked for $750,000 bail, noting the suspect was undocumented and a flight risk.
“There is a prior domestic-violence case, and he is the suspect in the murder of Alastasia Bryan,” she said.
Richmond’s lawyer, Gregory Watts, entered a plea of not guilty.
Watts told Judge Michael Gary that despite the fact Richmond lost his appeal to stay on US soil, nobody was moving to deport him. ICE wasn’t able to say why Richmond was still in the country. The agency said it would now work to get rid of him.
“Mr. Richmond has a final removal order,” ICE spokeswoman Rachael Yong Yow told The Post. “After the full resolution of the local charges, to include any potential conviction and prison term, ICE will take custody of Mr. Richmond to effectuate his removal order.”