On September 16, a federal judge in Alexandria sentenced Roni Mendez Escobar, 33, a Guatemalan national living illegally in Falls Church, to six years and five months in prison. He was convicted of receiving child sexual abuse material and illegally reentering the United States.
According to federal prosecutors, a forensic review of his devices found 46 images and 65 videos of child sexual abuse. He used WhatsApp to distribute the material, including depictions of the abuse of prepubescent children. He also used it to encourage others to view such material and to chat and video-call young girls. He had been removed from the United States three times under a final order of removal issued in 2015, and came back each time.
In October 2025, Fairfax County authorities arrested Mendez Escobar on 15 felony counts of possession of obscene material and two felony counts of possessing child pornography with intent to distribute, according to DHS. On October 23, ICE lodged a detainer asking the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office to hold him.
Four days later, on October 27, the Sheriff’s Office released him. DHS says it did so without notifying ICE. Federal agents did not take him back into custody until April 22, 2026, after a court appearance in Fairfax County. A man with three prior removals, facing child sexual abuse charges, spent almost six months back in the community.
This was not an accident. It is how the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office operates by design.
Sheriff Stacey Kincaid’s published policy states that her office will not hold anyone on an ICE detainer alone. It will hold an inmate only if ICE produces a warrant signed by a judge. She relies on a 2015 advisory opinion from then-Attorney General Mark Herring that called ICE detainers merely requests. Her policy also says ICE is notified every time an undocumented immigrant is booked, which conflicts with DHS’s account of this case.
ICE disputes her premise. The agency’s Washington field office director has said that demanding a judicial warrant asks ICE to operate outside the framework Congress gave it.
Fairfax does not have to operate this way. Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman honors ICE detainers without a judicial warrant. His office notifies ICE when it arrests someone in the country illegally, including when that person will appear before a magistrate or judge. “Our job is to keep people safe,” Chapman said.
Supervisor Pat Herrity, the lone Republican on the Board of Supervisors, has made the same point about Kincaid’s reliance on the old Herring opinion. He called it a cop-out. He also said residents expect their sheriff to keep repeat offenders off the streets.
Federal investigators pieced the case together. In January 2026, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations and its Enforcement and Removal Operations office in Chantilly began working the case, according to DHS. A federal search warrant for his phones turned up the evidence. According to the Fairfax Times, the county’s local charges were dismissed so federal prosecutors could take him into custody on federal warrants.
The outcome is right. He is going to prison, and DHS says he will be deported when his sentence ends. But that outcome depended on federal agents finding him again after the county let him walk. Fairfax families should not have to rely on luck and months of federal legwork to keep an accused child predator off their streets.
The Sheriff’s Office should honor ICE detainers for anyone charged with a violent felony or a sex crime against a child, as Loudoun already does. If the sheriff will not change course, the General Assembly should require it for the most serious offenses.
Contact Sheriff Kincaid’s office and ask why a three-time deportee charged with child sexual abuse crimes was released four days after ICE asked to hold him. Then ask your supervisor and state legislators where they stand.