Immigrant Accused in Conn. Killing Was Spared Deportation

A Haitian immigrant who was released from prison in January after serving a 17-year prison sentence for attempted murder is back in custody on a murder charge in the death of a Connecticut woman last month.

The Bulletin reports that Jean Jacques’s prison file was marked “Detainer: Immigration” and that Connecticut officials say he was released in January to the custody of the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but was never deported.

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On Monday, the 40-year-old Jacques was in a Connecticut court to answer to murder and drug charges, stemming from the June 15 stabbing death of Casey Chadwick in Norwich, the city where Jacques lived before he went to prison. The 25-year-old woman’s body was found stuffed in a closet.

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{snip} He had served 17 years in prison for attempted murder, a crime committed in Norwich. But he wasn’t deported, or held for deportation.

The newspaper reported Thursday that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said federal immigration officials had been trying to deport Jacques since 2002, while he was in prison, but were unable to send him back to Haiti because the 40-year-old convicted felon could not produce identity documents to establish his citizenship there.

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Casey Chadwick and Jean Jacques