How an Alleged MS-13 Killer Known as ‘The Witch’ was Released in California
Prosecutors admits to ‘stunning’ mistake in freeing David Antonio Aviles Perez
Last week, San Diego federal judge Dana Sabraw ordered the release of David Antonio Aviles Perez (an alleged machete-wielding MS-13 executioner known as “the Witch”) despite an aggravated-homicide conviction and a 20-year sentence in El Salvador.
David Antonio Aviles Perez, 35, was captured by ICE agents in San Diego in March on an international warrant accusing him of aggravated murder.
He had been held in federal custody pending his removal from the US.
But before authorities could arrange for his extradition, Aviles Perez was released last Wednesday by federal Judge Jinsook Ohta, who ordered his release from a southern California ICE detention facility by 5 p.m. the following day.
It turns out “The Witch” benefited from Biden’s “Catch and Release” program, and then went on to enjoy California’s “Sanctuary State” status. In April of this year, ICE nabbed him while he was roaming the streets after his initial release in 2023.
California’s sanctuary law is under fire yet again after a notorious MS-13 machete-wielding gangster known as “the witch” has been nabbed for the second time in the state after being caught and released during the Biden administration in 2023.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in San Diego have arrested David Antonio Aviles Perez, 35, who is wanted in El Salvador for aggravated murder. He was first arrested and released in Monterey, California, in 2023 on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon after allegedly swinging a machete at a man.
“ICE arrested this dangerous criminal illegal alien and MS-13 gang member wanted in El Salvador for murder,” Acting Assistant Department of Homeland Secretary (DHS) Lauren Bis wrote in a statement last week.
“Gavin Newsom’s sanctuary policies allowed this gang member to be released from jail after his arrest for assault with a deadly weapon, possession of a controlled substance, and petty theft.”
The judge released Perez because his Fifth Amendment due process rights had been violated.
After nearly five months in immigration custody, Aviles Perez filed a petition challenging his detention and seeking his immediate release.
Ohta ruled that immigration officials violated his Fifth Amendment due process rights by holding him without an individualized assessment of whether he was dangerous or likely to flee.
“Although Petitioner appears to have previously been convicted following a fight with another individual in May 2023, the government has offered no evidence that it detained him after considering those facts and making an individualized determination of his danger to the public or flight risk,” Ohta wrote.
As a San Diego resident, I am troubled that this little “spark of divinity” is out and about in this area.
🚨A Biden-appointed California judge ordered ICE to free MS-13's "The Witch," a man El Salvador already sentenced for a kneeling execution!!
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U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta, put on the Southern District of California bench by Joe Biden in 2021, ordered David Antonio Aviles… pic.twitter.com/IkUNJ0iwdm— Blue Lives Matter (@bluelivesmtr) September 6, 2026
Apparently, I am not the only one. The backlash has been so severe that prosecutors are begging forgiveness for the huge legal error that led to the release of “The Witch.”
San Diego prosecutors begged forgiveness in court Tuesday for releasing the MS-13 member, who was captured by San Diego ICE agents in March on an international warrant and was being held pending removal from the US.
But federal prosecutors admitted that they failed to tell federal Judge Jinsook Ohta about the man’s criminal history, which also includes a California arrest for allegedly attacking a vagrant with a machete.
“My failure was an unintentional mistake, and I sincerely apologize to the Court for my omission,” wrote Assistant US Attorney Michael Wallace in a sworn declaration showing remorse for the legal blunder.
US Attorney Adam Gordon and his office, which represents ICE, called Wallace’s omission a one-off.
Meanwhile, Perez remains at large…somewhere in California…maybe.
DHS says a Biden-appointed federal judge ordered the immediate release of an MS-13 gang member convicted in an execution-style murder in El Salvador — ruling that ICE held him for five months without a bond hearing or individualized assessment of whether he posed a danger to the… pic.twitter.com/84fsa2mQ9j
— Fox News Politics (@foxnewspolitics) September 6, 2026
“The Witch” drama is not a mysterious systems failure; rather, it is a great example of a preventable government blunder involving incomplete information, ideological immigration policies, and a criminal defendant who should never have fallen through the cracks.
Californians are entitled to more than apologies after the fact: We deserve to know who failed, why the system failed, and whether authorities can find “the Witch” before someone else pays the price.
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Comments
How? Is this even a question? It’s because Communists love criminals.
Or maybe he paid someone off. In a case like this, the feds should be looking very hard at that possibility.
Surprise surprise.
Once again a country of legalisms and nobody with common sense.
I don’t think the judge should be free of blame, here. Is she incapable or unwilling to ask prosecutors basic questions regarding the criminal history of the alien, in court, irrespective of prosecutors’ filings and statements?
If the judge is merely rubber-stamping prosecutors’ requests, without even engaging in a scintilla of judicial inquiry, then she isn’t doing her proper job.
Judge Jinsook Ohta, another one of Traitor Joe’s DEI bimbo appointees.
Big surprise.
Nope, in this case it seems she did her job correctly.
The guy should be shot on sight.
Clueless, as usual.
Yes, you are clueless. If you read the article you would see that she did her job correctly and had no choice but to order him released. It’s the DA who screwed up, and admits it.
Wouldn’t a “judge’s” job include knowing a little bit about the “defendant”? Even though the Prosecutor said he failed to tell the “judge” about the scum’s criminal history, you’d think a REAL Judge would ASK before turning one loose. So NO, she did not do her job correctly- unless you mean she released another illegal known to be dangerous!
If we step back and look objectively at all this, he should not have been released, even if the prosecution failed to provide information to the judge. He was here illegally. That’s all the criminal behavior we need in order to justify his detainment.
People like Millhouse will likely be quick to claim that simply being in the country illegally is a “misdemeanor”, but if we are indeed a sovereign nation, we have a right to apprehend and imprison anyone who enters.
To hold someone this long the government has to have made an individual assessment of the prisoner, and show the judge its homework. It’s not for the judge to conduct her own inquiry; that’s the government’s duty, and her role is to check that it’s all in order. But if the government hasn’t made such an assessment, or has but neglects to tell the judge about it, there’s nothing the judge can do.
In this case all the government had to do was present the guy’s criminal history and say “Here’s his individual assessment; he’s obviously a dangerous person.” But it didn’t do that.
No, she’s not rubber-stamping their requests; when they show her the individual assessment, she’s supposed to decide whether it’s sufficient. But if she’s not told there was one at all, then she has to assume there wasn’t one.
You posit, absurdly, that a federal judge’s role in this instance is total passivity and a lack of curiosity and basic inquiry. That’s utterly ridiculous.
Your musings are way off-base, as per usual.
Milhouse believes in the infallibility of judges, and would prefer they ruled the world.
It’s ridiculous to claim I believe that. You know you’re not telling the truth.
Yes, that is always a judge’s job. We do not have judge/prosecutors as they do in Europe. Judges must never conduct their own inquiries; they must rely only on the briefs presented to them. They must certainly never do the government’s work for it. Otherwise they become part of the executive branch, rather than a separate and independent branch.
I guess you missed the ULTIMATE example of a “judge” doing the Government’s homework – surely you recall the distinguished “Justice Roberts” doing the DEMOcrats’ homework with O Crap Care? I totally disagree with your premise that the Judge cannot ask questions about a defendant or plaintiff – not sure where that MS-13 thug fell.
I’ve watched videos of Judges handling cases where they asked questions of both sides to obtain more information before making a ruling. It’s amazing how some “small details” are not presented by the lawyers but the Judge had the criminal’s records to discuss!
Well, I disagree with the “as usual”. Despite his insufferable arrogance I will admit that Milhouse is correct, technically, most of the time he posts here. But this time, even though he is again technically correct that the judge is not REQUIRED to do more than passively approve (“rubber stamp”) the application without seeing more from the prosecution, I can tell you that in 50+ years of appearing before federal judges all over the country only rarely have I seen a judge do that without probing for more facts. The great majority, both left and right, take their “jobs” more seriously.
Not up to the Judge to ask basic questions regarding the criminal history of the alien. It’s up to the prosecutors to remember to file papers indicating that criminal history with the court so that the Judge can take appropriate action. The federal prosecutors admit they didn’t do that and the Judge took what she thought was the correct action in this case.
The only person(s) to blame for this are the federal prosecutors. Not the Judge.
eot
I strongly disagree — if the judge is just sitting there, like a spectator, and isn’t engaged in the proceeding, asking questions, probing, doing basic diligence, then he/she is a spectator to the proceeding.
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the judiciary’s role in our legal system. If you want that kind of judiciary, move to Europe, where judges are also investigators and prosecutors, and there is no neutral finder of facts and law.
Guess you’ve never paid much attention to Our HIGHEST Court – seems like those Justices ask a lot of questions. Now if it’s a Jury trial then the Judge might not do much but make sure the proceedings are fair, but if it’s just the “judge” making the decision then questions should be asked and the “judge” should be greatly informed of the facts before making a decision.
Wrong. See above.
Biden-appointed judge rules that “stunning mistake” must stand.
How was she supposed to know they’d made this mistake? She asked for the individual assessment, and they told her there wasn’t one.
The fcker was arrested in 2023. Also, he was already sentenced in El Salvador. How the hell could she not know this crap? Willful blindness. Hopefully, he relocated to her neighborhood.
She didn’t know this information because the incompetent federal prosecutors never told her about the convictions and absent that information she took what she thought was the appropriate actions. Wasn’t “willful blindness” but federal prosecutor incompetence that lead to this situation.
A judge knows nothing except what the parties put before her. That’s how it has to work. A judge is a neutral third party, not a participant in the case.
And given the judiciary’s enormous power, the only real constraint on it is that it cannot act sua sponte, and no matter how strongly a judge feels about something that is happening he cannot do anything about it unless and until someone with standing brings it before him. Without that constraint the judiciary becomes a dictatorship, as it has become in Israel.
The ‘stunning mistake’ was making a South Korean a federal judge in the first place. WTF?
That’s outright racism. Why should an immigrant not be a judge? Felix Frankfurter, George Sutherland, James Wilson, William Paterson were all immigrants.
In another Century you would be correct, but given the quality and ideology of the “biden judges”, it’s not racism – it’s just pure common sense! You, even in your divine wisdom, cannot look at the egregious decisions of the “foreigner judges” and not be appalled at some of their outright activism.
Here I agree with Milhouse 100%. In any century you are espousing racist and unacceptable (and un-American) views. The 4 judges Milhouse mentions are just the tip of the iceberg of wonderful talented and totally professional US judges who were born in another country. One of the best was the late Judge TS Ellis, of the E.D.Va, who was born in Colombia and who presided over my wife’s naturalization ceremony with such patriotism and grace that it brought the audience to tears.
DECREE OF DOOM UPON THE WITCH AVILES PEREZTO
ALL CONSTABLES AND GOD-FEARING SOULS
WHEREAS, the wretched sorcerer David Antonio Aviles Perez, known to the underworld as “The Witch,” did wickedly escape his righteous confinement at the Otay Mesa dungeon in San Diego;
AND WHEREAS, by a most unnatural and bewitched blindness, the King’s own prosecutors did fail to reveal his bloody past and machete-wielding sorcery to the High Magistrate;
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that this dangerous fugitive be immediately hunted across the sun-cursed territory.
Once apprehended, “The Witch” shall be heavily bound, weighted with great stones, and cast into the Pacific waters to answer for his high crimes against the peace of this colony.
By Order of the High Court, 1692.
Attorney Wallace and the attorney to whom he reports, should be fired.
I don’t suppose there’s any possibility that the people involved will pay any price for their unconscionable corruption and/or incompetence?
Why in the f*ck are foreigners serving as judges in this country? If you didn’t grow up here, how could you possibly understand our culture and way of life?
The “Big Guy” didn’t care, as long as he got his kickbacks.
Not understanding our culture and way of life is a feature, not a bug, for the communists that appointed her.
Yoiu fucking racist. She did grow up here.
And some of our greatest judges didn’t. James Wilson immigrated when he was 22.
Can only wish David was the forced house guest of Dana for 1 year. She should live with her decision.
What kind of federal prosecutor ~doesn’t~ build the strongest case possible? That’s not incompetence; there’s something else going on here. This was clearly intentional.
Cui bono?
Move “The Witch” next door to Judge Dumbass.
You are a lawyer and you don’t see the issue with the prosecutor’s handling of this hearing? You are simply blaming the judge? Seriously?
There is plenty of blame to go around. Both of them f###ed up.
How?
Detainees have one move- a habeas hearing in the jurisdiction where they’re being detained
Time and time again higher courts have affirmed this
The guy was in the country illegally. That should be all the justification needed for his detainment. Whether or not he violated other laws should not matter if we are, in fact, a sovereign nation.
If someone enters your home without authorization, is he allowed to stay as long as he does not commit any other crimes?
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