ICE had detainer for migrant accused of raping woman under Coney Island boardwalk — but he was never deported
The migrant from Nicaragua who allegedly raped a woman at knifepoint in Coney Island had a federal immigration detainer placed on him after a prior sexual assault — but he was still free to roam around New York months after his release from jail.
It’s not clear why agents from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t pick up Daniel Davon-Bonilla, 24, but officials — including Mayor Eric Adams — blamed the Big Apple’s sanctuary city laws, which bar local authorities from cooperating with ICE in any way.
“Laws do not allow us to coordinate with ICE — that’s the law,” Hizzoner said at a Tuesday press conference. “I’m not happy about that.
“I think he’s the poster child of what’s wrong with not doing that coordination,” Adams said of Davon-Bonilla. “It’s clear that he does not deserve to be in our city.”
Sources said ICE had issued a detainer for Davon-Bonilla when he was arrested in 2023 for allegedly raping a woman at a La Quinta Hotel on Third Avenue in Gowanus, which had been turned into a migrant shelter.
An immigration detainer is a notice issued by the US Department of Homeland Security and sent to local, state or federal law enforcement agencies that says ICE wants to nab of somebody who is already in custody.
ICE agents said that the city’s policies have hurt their ability to round up hardened criminals like Davon-Bonilla, who spent a year behind bars before inking a plea deal with Brooklyn prosecutors that freed him from Rikers Island in June.
“They just won’t honor detainers,” a DHS source said on Tuesday, referencing the city’s law enforcement agencies.
“ICE probably didn’t know that the guy was released,” the source continued. “The city council has made it absolutely impossible … We might not even know about the case until we read it in The Post.”
Davon-Bonilla, who DHS sources said entered the country illegally through Eagle Pass, Texas, on Dec. 7, 2022, was busted just four months later in Brooklyn.
He was charged with criminal sexual act, unlawful imprisonment as a hate crime, sexual misconduct and sexual abuse for the April 3, 2023 attack at the La Quinta, according to a criminal complaint.
Davon-Bonilla was behind bars for about a year before he took the plea deal that downgraded his charges to assault in the second-degree and put him back on the street in June, according to corrections officials and Brooklyn prosecutors.
The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office struck the deal because the victim did not want to testify, a spokesperson said.
Law enforcement sources noted the federal agency could have tracked the case online to see when he was expected to be released.
“The status of criminal cases is public record, and any person or entity can easily monitor their statuses and outcomes online,” a rep for the DA’s Office said Tuesday.
“Our office is generally unaware of defendants’ immigration status and we don’t contact ICE after pleas.”
Davon-Bonilla — who has no known address — now faces up to seven years in the earlier case for violating the terms of the deal with his new arrest, the rep said.
He and another migrant were arrested and charged with a litany of crimes stemming from the alleged Sunday morning rape near Surf Avenue and West 16th Street.
Cops and sources said Davon-Bonilla grabbed a 46-year-old woman, threw her to the ground and raped her as he held a knife to her throat.
The victim told cops she had been living under the boardwalk with her boyfriend for two weeks, the sources added.
Davon-Bonilla’s alleged accomplice, Leovando Moreno, 37, of Mexico, smashed the woman’s 34-year-old boyfriend with a pipe when he tried to stop the vicious assault.
Authorities charged Davon-Bonilla with first-degree rape, second-degree assault, first-degree sexual abuse, menacing and criminal possession of a weapon, the sources added.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges during a late-night arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court on Monday.
A judge ordered him held without bail, and he will return to court Friday.
City Councilman Bob Holden, a Queens Democrat, said Davon-Bonilla’s alleged foul act was the “direct result of City Hall’s refusal to act and work with ICE to keep our communities safe, leaving us vulnerable to those who should have been deported.
“Instead of being turned over to ICE after being arrested, convicted, and sentenced, this sicko was released back onto the streets, only to commit the same vile sexual assault again,” Holden told The Post, adding that his proposed bill reversing the Big Apple’s sanctuary laws was dead-on-arrival in the City Council.
“We already have enough criminals in this city—why should we continue importing more?” the councilman continued. “The madness in this city must end.”
At the press conference, Adams called the situation “really problematic.”
“This is the challenge that we’re facing,” the mayor said. “The overwhelming number of migrants in the city that are here — they’re trying to do the right thing as they take their next step onto their journey. But you do have that small number that’s problematic.”
