Federal prosecutors dropped an attempted murder allegation against Gabriel Hurtado-Cariaco after bystander videos contradicted ICE’s account of a June arrest in Bellevue, Nebraska, according to Nebraska Public Media and court records cited in the case.
The practical result is stark: Hurtado-Cariaco, a 31-year-old Venezuelan man who had been described by the Department of Homeland Security as a “criminal illegal alien” and a “known Tren de Aragua terrorist,” pleaded guilty to resisting arrest and received a 14-month sentence, much of which he had already served while jailed since his arrest.
DHS had claimed Hurtado-Cariaco attacked an ICE agent by forcing her head into the ground and trying to choke her to death. At a preliminary hearing, Nebraska Public Media reported, a Homeland Security agent and a federal prosecutor also said he had received “special forces-type training” in Venezuela and may have been involved in violence and human rights abuses.
The confirmed background is narrower. Hurtado-Cariaco had served in the Venezuelan military, deserted, came to the United States, filed an asylum claim, was paroled into the country in 2024, and had been working as a delivery driver, according to Nebraska Public Media.
The affidavit changed the case
ICE agent Craig Allrich wrote the affidavit used to support the criminal complaint, though Nebraska Public Media reported that Allrich was not present for the arrest. The first complaint accused Hurtado-Cariaco of resisting arrest. An amended complaint escalated the allegation, saying he got control of a female ICE officer, identified as “Victim 1,” and put her in a chokehold while another agent ordered him to let go.
Two bystander recordings told a different story. Nebraska Public Media reported that neither video shows Hurtado-Cariaco choking the female agent. The videos instead show agents putting Hurtado-Cariaco in a chokehold on two occasions while he tries to get away.
That distinction is not paperwork trivia. The government’s attempted murder theory depended on the claim that Hurtado-Cariaco choked the agent. The recordings showed resistance and flight, according to the reporting, without the chokehold attributed to him in the amended complaint.
Federal public defender Richard McWilliams said prosecutors had the videos and still refused to drop the attempted murder charge. U.S. Attorney Lesley Woods disputed that account, saying the defense did not turn over recordings it had obtained. The dispute leaves an ugly gap in the timeline, but the charge did disappear.
Prosecutors tried a terrorism charge next
In November, prosecutors filed a superseding indictment that dropped attempted murder and added a felony count of providing material support to a terrorist organization, according to Nebraska Public Media. The charge relied on the government’s assertion that Hurtado-Cariaco was linked to Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang the Trump administration had designated a foreign terrorist organization.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration policy analyst who flagged the case, said ICE appeared to base the gang claim on a tattoo. He described it as a clock with Hurtado-Cariaco’s son’s birthday and an image of a man holding a child’s hand, rather than evidence of Tren de Aragua membership.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge Robert Rossiter was not persuaded by the government’s broader claims. At sentencing, he said the allegations in the initial complaint were “at worst a misrepresentation and at best complete negligence,” Nebraska Public Media reported. Rossiter said Hurtado-Cariaco did commit the offense he pleaded guilty to by fleeing and struggling with officers, but called the law enforcement reports “embellished” and “troubling.”
Rossiter also rejected the labels prosecutors and DHS had attached to Hurtado-Cariaco. “To refer to him as a terrorist, attempted murderer, that he had put a chokehold on these victims… It’s just not borne out by the evidence,” the judge said. “And it’s troubling.”
This story draws on original reporting from Techdirt.
