The New York Times Wakes Up to How Bad Sanctuary Laws Are

Amajor New York newspaper published an article over the weekend headlined “How a Migrant Accused of Rape Was Freed and Charged With Rape Again”. But it wasn’t the populist New York Post reporting on how migrant crime fueled by feckless sanctuary policies was creating victims in Gotham – it was the New York Times, the most credulous consumer and reporter of progressive talking points. Perhaps the sanctuary worm in the Big Apple has turned, but I remain skeptical.

Speaking of the Post, it was among the first outlets to report on the alleged crime at issue in the Times article, reporting two weeks ago that: “NYC migrants – including one charged in sex assault 4 months ago – raped woman at knifepoint, beat her boyfriend: sources”. 

Often, Post headlines tell the story, but this one only scratched the surface. As per that article, on the night of August 11, two migrants – Daniel Davon-Bonilla, a 24-year-old national of Nicaragua and 37-year-old Mexican national Leovando Moreno – accosted a couple under the under the Riegelmann Boardwalk at Coney Island. 

The alleged victims were a 46-year-old woman and her 37-year-old boyfriend, who apparently had been residing on the margins of society under the boardwalk. I’ll return to that offense, below.

Daniel Devon-Bonilla 

As heinous as that crime was, the story of how Devon-Bonilla came to be in Coney Island, N.Y. on the night of August 11 is almost equally disturbing. 

He was apprehended by Border Patrol agents after entering the United States illegally near Eagle Pass, Texas, on December 7, 2022. Thereafter, he was processed and released – like most border migrants under the Biden-Harris administration – giving agents the address of a homeless shelter in Miami as his intended address. 

Whether he ever went to Miami is unknown, but what official reports do reveal is that he was living in a migrant shelter at a La Quinta motel in Gowanus, Brooklyn on April 4, 2023. We know that because that’s where he was arrested for raping a “transgender woman”. 

Police charged Davon-Bonilla with two counts of a criminal sexual act, sexual abuse, forcible touching, sexual misconduct and unlawful imprisonment as a hate crime in connection with that suspected offense, and ICE placed a detainer on him.

Devon-Bonilla crossed the border in December 2022, and was processed and released – like most border migrants under the Biden-Harris administration. 

The alleged victim refused to cooperate with the authorities, however, so the Brooklyn district attorney’s office offered Devon-Bonilla a plea deal on June 24, under which the charges would be reduced to second-degree assault (a felony), and he’d agree to attend nine months of counseling for “problematic sexual behavior”.

Devon-Bonilla took that deal, and the court ordered him released pending sentencing. Rather than honoring the detainer and turning him over to ICE, however, the Corrections Department cut the Nicaraguan migrant loose. 

For its part, the Corrections Department claims that it had no record of that detainer. As the Times explains, notwithstanding its serial sanctuary statutes, the Corrections Department is allowed to share information with ICE about aliens who have been charged with any one of 177 “serious offenses, including rape and felony assault”. 

That said, the paper also makes clear that the Corrections Department had received 201 ICE detainer requests as of the year ended June 30, 2023, but transferred only 10 of them to ICE. Still, that was 10 more than the NYPD had honored, despite having received 109 detainers in the same period. 

It’s no surprise, therefore, that the alleged victim in the Coney Island attacked complained to the Times that rape “happens to women every day, and we never get justice, and we end up dead”.

Devon-Bonilla never appeared back in court on August 9 for sentencing in conjunction with the Gowanus incident, however, which is why he wasn’t in custody at 8:45 PM on Sunday, August 11, but instead was purportedly at large in Coney Island. 

‘The Horrific Sunday Attack’

Which brings me back to the Post’s description of that incident:

The horrific Sunday attack took place near Surf Avenue and West 16th Street. A poorly lit walkway leads to a space under the boardwalk there that locals said vagrants camp out in and which was littered with drug paraphernalia and cans of White Claw Monday.

Sources said the victim, who told cops she had been living under the boardwalk with her boyfriend for two weeks, was approached by Davon-Bonilla while she was alone.

He offered her trinkets in exchange for sex, and when she refused, he attacked her, choking her and holding her down while he raped her, the sources said.

The woman’s boyfriend arrived during the assault and scuffled with Davon-Bonilla, but was then blindsided from behind by Moreno, according to sources. 

“Blindsided” in that instance means “struck with a metal pipe”, but for his part Moreno’s lawyer claimed the Mexican national didn’t know Devon-Bonilla and was simply breaking up a fight. 

A passerby called 911, and cops responded. Devon-Bonilla has now been charged with, among other things, first-degree rape, assault, and criminal possession of a weapon (he allegedly held a knife to the victim’s throat during the attack). 

‘The Madness in this City Must End’

As always in the aftermath of such alleged incidents, I’d be remiss to not note that defendants enjoy the presumption of innocence unless and until they are convicted. 

That said, however, the facts of this reported attack stirred elected officials in deep-blue New York City to respond. 

For instance, when asked about the ICE detainer for Devon-Bonilla, Mayor Eric Adams (D) complained:

Laws do not allow us to coordinate with ICE. That’s the law. And, you know, I’m not happy about that . . . You know, and I think he’s the poster child of what’s wrong, with, not doing that coordination. It’s clear that he does not deserve to be in our city.