Utah couple accused of helping man flee immigration agents face federal charges

Federal prosecutors say a young Utah couple were “partners in crime” when they helped a man escape from federal immigration agents in October and cut his handcuffs, then posted about it on social media.  

Both pleaded not guilty Friday in Utah’s U.S. District Court to a class A misdemeanor count encompassing theft and disposal of government property as well as aiding and abetting. Court filings paint a dramatic scene of the getaway, with no allegation it was planned ahead of time. 

“This case involves a male-female couple who brazenly helped a handcuffed, suspected illegal immigrant man evade arrest by federal agents (ICE) at a local Home Depot parking lot by (1) spiriting him away in their Volkswagen Golf while a border patrol officer chased after him; (2) purchasing bolt cutters and cutting off his handcuffs; and (3) posting about it online as they cursed ICE and trumpeted their ‘heroism,’” prosecutors wrote in court filings. 

The couple, Kelzie Ryann Luna, 21, and George Sanchez-Juarez, 22, declined comment after Friday’s hearing. 

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Utah, which announced the charges Thursday, did not disclose the name of the man who ran away or say if he was eventually caught. The immigration officers had gone to the Home Depot looking for four people previously deported, court documents say, with one agent saying the escapee “looked like one of the four targets.”

The couple was in their car at a gas station in Salt Lake City on Oct. 8 when the man ran into traffic and came up to them, saying “help me please” in Spanish, according to a play-by-play laid out in court documents with transcripts of voice messages and social media posts. 

From the passenger seat, Luna recognized him as “one of the nice ones” who had frequented the McDonald’s nearby where she used to work. Prosecutors accused her of saying in an Instagram post that he had a gash on his arm and a black eye and that “we brought him to safety and made sure he was okay.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote the allegations in a detailed memo, saying Luna and Sanchez-Juarez have no criminal history and the office is not asking for them to be held in jail. But it called them a “danger to the public” nonetheless and contends they stole and destroyed government property — the handcuffs.  

Prosecutors also included two screenshots as evidence. One was taken from a video posted to the Instagram page “SLC Scoop,” with one clip of a man sprinting into traffic and another clip of someone cutting off handcuffs. They say another screenshot shows Luna posted the same video with the caption, “(Expletive) ice viva Mexico,” followed by four prayer hands emojis. 

During their first court appearance in the case Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Dustin Pead appointed attorneys to represent Luna and Sanchez-Juarez. At the request of prosecutors, the judge also barred the pair from discussing the facts of the case, but he said the parents of twins could speak with each other about the consequences and the reality of the criminal charges. 

Pead scheduled a four-day trial to begin July 31.