MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Wisconsin man is facing charges accusing him of forging a letter threatening President Donald Trump’s life in an effort to get another man who was a potential witness against him in a criminal case deported.
Prosecutors said in a criminal complaint filed Monday that Demetric D. Scott was behind a letter sent to state and federal officials with the return address and name of Ramón Morales Reyes.
Scott was charged Monday with felony witness intimidation, identity theft and two counts of bail jumping. His attorney, Robert Hampton III, didn’t immediately return an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Immigration agents arrested Morales Reyes, 54, on May 21 after he dropped his child off at school in Milwaukee. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the arrest, saying he had written a letter threatening to kill Trump and would “self-deport” to Mexico. The announcement, which also was posted by the White House on its social media accounts, contained an image of the letter as well as a photo of Morales Reyes.
But the claim started to unravel as investigators talked to Morales Reyes, who doesn’t speak English fluently, and obtained a handwriting sample from him that was different from the handwriting in the letters, according to court documents.
Morales Reyes is listed as a victim in the case involving Scott, who is awaiting trial in Milwaukee County Jail on armed robbery and aggravated battery charges. The trial is scheduled for July.
Law enforcement officers listened to several calls Scott made from the jail in which he talked about letters that needed to be mailed and a plan to get someone picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement so Scott’s trial could get dismissed, according to the criminal complaint. He also admitted to police that he wrote the letters, documents said.
Morales Reyes works as a dishwasher in Milwaukee, where he lives with his wife and three children. He had recently applied for a U visa, which is for people in the country illegally who become victims of serious crimes, said attorney Kime Abduli, who filed that application.
Abduli told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Monday that she was glad Morales Reyes was being cleared of any involvement in the letter writing.
His deportation defense lawyer, Cain Oulahan, wrote in an email Monday night that the main focus now is to secure Morales Reyes’ release from custody and the next step will be to pursue any relief he may qualify for in immigration court.
“While he has a U visa pending, those are unfortunately backlogged for years, so we will be looking at other options to keep him here with his family, which includes his three US citizen children,” Oulahan wrote.
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