Source: Office of United States Attorneys
ST. LOUIS – A man from Columbia was indicted Wednesday and accused of assaulting an officer with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Yefferson Josue Pinzon Suarez, 31, was indicted by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in St. Louis with one felony count of assaulting a federal employee.
In March, an immigration judge ordered Pinzon Suarez removed from the country, according to a motion to have Pinzon Suarez held in jail until trial. On June 20, he was picked up from the St. Louis County Jail, where he was serving a sentence. After being taken to the Robert A. Young Federal Building in downtown St. Louis, Pinzon Suarez refused to cooperate during fingerprinting. Pinzon Suarez bit a deportation officer’s forearm and hit him in the chest, the motion says.
Pinzon Suarez had been living in Maryland Heights.
A charge set forth in an indictment is merely accusations and do not constitute proof of guilt. Every defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s Department of Homeland Security investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Colleen Lang is prosecuting the case.
This case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime. Operation Take Back America streamlines efforts and resources from the Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces and Project Safe Neighborhood.