A Honduran national who was in the United States illegally has been arrested for raping his 15-year-old stepdaughter in Maryland.
Charged with third-degree sex offense, fourth-degree sex offense, second-degree rape, and sex abuse of a minor, Emilio Carrasco-Hernandez faces up to 56 years in prison if convicted.
Police responded to a complaint stemming from Monday in which a girl complained to Montgomery County Police’s Special Victims Investigation Division that her 37-year-old stepfather had sexually violated her. She graphically described a nonconsensual encounter with Carrasco-Hernandez, leading to his arrest this week. He was denied bail on Thursday and will await further proceedings from police custody.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed that Carrasco-Hernandez had been deported in 2017. They did not know when or how he had returned to the country.
MORE: Per ICE, Carrasco-Hernandez is a Honduran national living in the U.S. illegally.
In April 2017, an immigration judge sent the then 35yo back to Honduras. He later re-entered the U.S. on an unknown date and by unknown means.
Carrasco-Hernandez is being held without bond. pic.twitter.com/wMitx8mtJE
— Kevin Lewis (@ABC7Kevin) August 31, 2019
Carrasco-Hernandez’s arrest is at least the seventh involving an illegal immigrant raping or sexually abusing a minor in Maryland since July 25.
Last Tuesday, Nelson Reyes-Medrano, 46, was charged with first-degree rape after crawling into bed with a 16-year-old girl and sexually attacking her at knifepoint in Germantown in 2018. ICE confirmed that Reyes-Medrano was in the country illegally at the time.
Luis Perez-Giron, 28, was charged with two counts of third-degree sexual offense after attempting to rape a 12-year-old girl in Gaithersburg. His wife was reportedly in labor at the hospital at the time of the attack. The girl was able to fend off the attack and later told authorities that the man threatened to attack her again in the future if she didn’t keep quiet.
Mauricio Barrera-Navidad, 29, and Carlos Palacios-Amaya, 28, were both arrested and charged with multiple counts of raping and abusing an 11-year-old girl in Germantown. The two men, reportedly friends of the girl’s older brother, were charged with multiple instances of rape and abuse of the preteen. Natives of El Salvador, they were both confirmed by ICE as having been in the country illegally at the time of the attacks.
Nestor Lopez-Guzman, 21, was accused of molesting a 12-year-old girl and her younger brother. He was arrested in Rockville on charges relating to several instances of inappropriately touching the children, according to police reports. Lopez-Guzman, a native of El Salvador, was in the country illegally at the time, according to ICE.
The concentration of the incidents involving rape of children and illegal immigrants in Montgomery County, Maryland, has some worried that law enforcement ignores federal requests to hold prisoners for deportation in the largely liberal D.C. suburb.
