A man accused of helping orchestrate a jewellery heist described by authorities as the largest in US history may never face trial because he was deported unbeknownst to prosecutors, court documents have revealed.
Jeson Nelon Presilla Flores, 42, an Ecuadorian who was living in the Greater Los Angeles city of Upland, is accused of abetting the theft of about $US100 million ($147 million) worth of gold, gems and luxury watches in 2022.
Despite being indicted last year along with six other alleged accomplices and pleading not guilty to the charges against him, Mr Flores was later detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers without prosecutors' knowledge.
Within months he was deported, in a decision that could see him avoid prosecution over the alleged heist.
Court documents have revealed how the case against Mr Flores came grinding to a halt.
This is what they show.
The 'heist': Accused robbers targeted shipping trucks
Mr Flores was allegedly part of a group of men accused of using multiple vehicles in central California to track and tail trucks carrying valuable items that they would then steal, according to an indictment lodged in a US court.
The group allegedly committed three separate robberies of Samsung and Apple electronic products worth a combined $US312,031 between March and May.
Federal prosecutors claimed the group would follow the trucks until they stopped and would break into them while either distracting or threatening the drivers.
In July, the group set its sights on another target — the International Gem and Jewellery Show, the indictment said.
Prosecutors claimed that between July 9 and 10, multiple members of the group "scouted" the event that was being held in San Mateo near San Francisco and a Brinks semi truck that contained 73 bags of jewellery shipped from interstate.
They are accused of waiting for the truck to leave late at night on July 10 and followed it for almost 500 kilometres to rest stops in the small towns of Buttonwillow and Lebec, north of Los Angeles.
[DW map]In the early hours of July 11, 24 bags of gold, diamonds, rubies, emeralds and watches — worth about $US100 million — were stolen from the vehicle in Lebec and moved another 115km to East Hollywood, the indictment said.
A separate court document claimed the truck's driver had left the vehicle to get food while his co-worker remained in the vehicle and was asleep in the cab.
The driver was away from the truck for 27 minutes and the accused robbers struck within that time, the document said.
The group's five alleged ringleaders, 31-year-old Carlos Victor Mestanza Cercado, 36-year-old Jazael Padilla Resto, 41-year-old Pablo Raul Lugo Larroig, 60-year-old Victor Hugo Valencia Solorzano and 33-year-old Jorge Enrique Alban, all face a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted, the US Attorney's Office in Central California said last year.
Mr Flores was indicted on June 11 last year and faced a maximum of 15 years in prison, prosecutors said.
The bungle: Suspect embroiled in immigration mix-up
Lawyers representing Mr Flores confirmed this month a deal had been struck to secure his freedom on bail in August last year after an "extensive negotiation".
Despite that deal, Mr Flores — who was described as "a permanent lawful resident of the United States residing in the Central District of California for 25 years" by his lawyer John D Robertson — was not freed, according to a court document.
Instead, Mr Flores was transferred into the custody of ICE and deported to Ecuador on December 29, Mr Robertson claimed.
Court documents show Mr Flores was born in Ecuador, and prosecutors said he has "close family ties" to people there and in Spain, as well as children living in Puerto Rico.
"The Government's actions here have been in defiance of the Court's Order for release, have been in total disregard of the Government's pending Indictment, have greatly impacted Defendant Flores's ability to prepare for trial and present a defence," he said in the court document.
"The Government has now succeeded in at least one of its contradictory aims; i.e., Defendant Flores's permanent removal from the United States."
Mr Robertson also lobbied for the indictment to be dismissed without the option for charges to be refiled in the future, on the basis that it appeared ICE — and therefore the Trump administration — had chosen to forgo his criminal prosecution in favour of his deportation.
In a separate court document filed on January 15, assistant US attorneys Kevin J Butler and Jena A MacCabe said prosecutors had been left unaware that Mr Flores was in immigration detention or that he had been deported.
"The prosecutors believed that [the] defendant was, in fact, a lawful permanent resident, and that he would continue to live and work in the United States while awaiting trial," the prosecutors said.
"[Mr Flores] argues that the government chose to forgo his criminal prosecution. For the undersigned prosecutors who worked countless hours to pursue criminal convictions and sentences in this case … Those prosecutors remain eager to prosecute [the] defendant for his crimes and vindicate his victims.
"To give [the] defendant a further windfall of being allowed to return to the United States with these charges irrevocably erased from his record would be improper under the law and unfair given the facts."
The prosecutors also claimed they had been told Mr Flores "admitted to all the allegations against him" during an appearance in an immigration court, but they were only made aware after his appearance.
They said Mr Flores also asked an immigration judge to grant him "Voluntary Departure".
Voluntary Departure allows individuals to freely leave the US immediately without a criminal deportation listed on their record and avoid a mandatory exclusion period of up to 10 years from travelling back into the country.
The judge denied that request but issued a "final order of removal" to authorise ICE agents to enforce his deportation within 90 days, the prosecutors' court document said.
In their filing, the prosecutors also requested the current case be dismissed but opposed Mr Robertson's position that it be without the option for charges to be refiled in the future.
Ms MacCabe said they would file more charges if Mr Flores ever returned to the US.
A judge is yet to issue a final ruling, but the case is set to return to court on February 12.
The fallout: 'Exceptional' deportation amid political pressure
Donald Rothwell, a leading expert on international law from the Australian National University, believes Mr Flores's deportation reflects an ongoing "tension" between the Trump administration and the "regular administration of justice".
"It would be exceptional for somebody who's been charged, indicted and taken into custody, who has an irregular immigration status in the United States, to be deported prior to going to trial," he told the ABC.
"This a very serious crime … federal prosecutors had built their case, they were arresting the various conspirators.
"US federal prosecutors are doing their job … This person's immigration status did not seem to be in question, and if this person had not be detained on the theft charges, he may not have come to the attention of ICE."
He also said it appeared Mr Flores's case is an example of the Trump administration's immigration enforcement policies detracting from the work of federal prosecutors.
More than 605,000 "illegal aliens" have been deported and another 1.9 million have willingly left the US in the past year since President Donald Trump entered office, the White House says.
The Trump administration says ICE doubled its number of enforcement agents to 22,000 individuals in the past year.
The Biden administration deported an average of 1.19 million "unauthorised migrants" from the US a year while in office, according to the Office of Homeland Security Statistics.
The Obama administration removed, returned or expelled a yearly average of almost 750,000 non-citizens between 2009 and 2016.
Professor Rothwell believes "there's a significant amount of evidence" that the Trump administration has been placing pressure on ICE to increase immigration arrests.
"We know that the president frequently talks about ICE operations, and that just inevitably creates momentum that ICE as an agency and ICE agents are seeking to meet political expectations," he said.
"That might quite literally just come down to a numbers game as to how many people are being deported after they've come within the remit of ICE as an agency."
