The last of four men who escaped from a New Jersey ICE detention center earlier this month is likely hiding out in Queens, the FBI said Tuesday.
Andres Felipe Pineda-Mogollon, 25, was among those who broke out of Newark’s Delaney Hall on June 12 during reported turmoil over poor conditions at the facility. Two were arrested within 72 hours and a third was picked up last week, leaving Pineda-Mogollon as the only one still at large.
Several tips have indicated that Pineda-Mogollon, originally from Colombia, is currently in Queens, authorities told the Newark Star-Ledger on Tuesday. The FBI is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to his arrest and said last week that he’s “known to have ties to Queens.”
Unlike many of the immigrants being rounded up by the Trump administration to make White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s 3,000-deportations-per-day quota, the four escapees faced criminal charges before being slated for detention and removal.
Pineda-Mogollon, who’s said to have entered the country illegally in 2023, had previously been arrested for petty larceny by the NYPD in April and in New Jersey in May for residential burglary, conspiracy residential burglary and possession of burglary tools, according to Homeland Security.
Joel Enrique Sandoval-Lopez, 22, from Honduras, had been arrested once for unlawful handgun possession and separately for aggravated assault in New Jersey, while 18-year-old Joan Sebastian Castaneda-Lozada, from Colombia, had been charged in May with burglary, theft and conspiracy.
Franklin Norberto Bautista-Reyes, 20, from Honduras, was charged in New Jersey with aggravated assault, attempt to cause bodily injury, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and making terroristic threats.
All four men are now additionally charged with escape from the custody of an institution or officer, a federal offense, the DHS said.
They escaped aided by mattresses and bed sheets, officials from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of New Jersey said last week. They broke through an aluminum wall on the second floor and cushioned their jump with mattresses they threw down ahead of them, then swathed the facility’s barbed-wire fencing in bedsheets to climb out.
With News Wire Services
