Girl Says Case of Student Who Groped Her, Others Not About Immigration Status

At its core, the case against Israel Flores Ortiz is about an 18-year-old high school junior in Virginia who groped female students as they passed by in crowded hallways between classes.

But amid the charged politics surrounding the Trump administration’s ramped-up immigration enforcement, the legal proceedings involving the undocumented teenager have garnered widespread attention in conservative circles — on a scale that county prosecutors and some of the victims say overshadows his crimes.

“Due to the politics of this moment, this case has become something that it really isn’t,” one victim wrote in an impact statement that a county attorney read aloud in court Tuesday during a sentencing hearing. “It is about a guy in the hallway that did the wrong thing and made me feel unsafe. However, some people believe this is only happening due to his legal status, when it could be anybody of any race or any color that could have done this.”

Flores Ortiz, a native of El Salvador who federal officials say arrived illegally in the United States in 2024, has been incarcerated since March. A judge in Fairfax County’s juvenile and domestic relations court this week ordered him to spend an additional 360 days in the county detention center after he was convicted of nine counts of misdemeanor assault and battery.

Federal immigration officials have requested that the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office hold him after he completes his sentence next April so they can take him into custody, county officials said.

Meanwhile, a federal investigation of how officials in the Fairfax County school system handled the incidents is underway, further charging a previously scheduled congressional hearing on May 14 in which Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano (D) and Sheriff Stacy Kincaid (D) have been asked to testify about how they have handled crimes involving undocumented immigrants.

A review of the incidents at Fairfax High School also has been commissioned by the county schools superintendent.

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Flores Ortiz started the year as one of more than 2,000 students at Fairfax High School simply focused on getting through the academic year. His public defender described the Spanish-speaking teen as quiet around campus and said he held a job after school as a waiter at a restaurant.

Then, in early March, nine female students told school officials that Flores Ortiz groped them in the hallways over a nearly two-week period starting in February. One girl testified to “feeling caressed on the leg.” Another said she felt a “tickle,” while the school resource officer who interviewed the students testified that a different girl described being “grabbed from the buttocks.”

Four more complaints arrived later. Troy Ketch, an assistant principal at the school, testified in court earlier this month that he reviewed security footage and verified all but two of the initial complaints. In one incident, Ketch said, he saw “Israel with his hand on the backside of one of the students.”

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Flores Ortiz turned himself in to police on March 6 and was charged with misdemeanor counts of assault and battery, according to court records.

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VanLowe noted that Flores Ortiz has no prior criminal record, which usually would keep a defendant from incarceration for a first-time misdemeanor offense.

But this case is different, she said, recalling one incident in which a girl confronted Flores Ortiz immediately after she was touched. Two days later, he did it again, according to the judge, who in addition to the jail sentence ordered that Flores Ortiz undergo two years of supervised probation.

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