WASHINGTON — A man who escaped from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody on the Dulles Toll Road for several hours in July before being found has been sentenced for assault.
Marlon Rivas-Mendez, 28, a Salvadoran national, was sentenced Friday to 18 months in prison. He had pleaded guilty last month to assaulting and impeding a person assisting officers or employees of the United States. The maximum penalty was eight years, according to the plea agreement.
Rvas-Mendez, who had been living in Sterling, Virginia, was arrested in Loudoun County July 3 after being accused of being drunk in public. He had been previously removed from the U.S. five times; ICE placed a detainer on him, and workers from the private contract company Immigration Centers of America came to the Loudoun County jail to take him to the ICE office in Fairfax for deportation, according to the charging documents.
During the trip, Rivas-Mendez said several times that his handcuffs were too tight, the charging documents read. They pulled over between exits 6 and 8, and one of the workers opened the door and loosened the first handcuff. Rivas-Mendez then hit one of the officers and ran off, leading to a manhunt that tied up traffic for more than three hours, the documents read.
Rivas-Mendez had been deported from the U.S. five times between 2007 and 2015. Prosecutors said he has been a member of the MS-13 gang but had claimed to no longer be part of the gang.
