BS BULLETIN:
- David Antonio Aviles Perez, an MS-13 member known as “The Witch,” was convicted in El Salvador of an execution-style murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
- A Biden-appointed federal judge ordered him released from ICE custody after finding the government held him for months without an individualized bond hearing or determination that he was dangerous or a flight risk.
- DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin blasted the ruling Saturday, saying the judge had put “American lives at risk.”
An MS-13 gang member nicknamed “The Witch,” convicted of an execution-style murder in El Salvador, is back out of federal custody in California.
U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta ordered the immediate release of David Antonio Aviles Perez, 35, after concluding immigration authorities violated his due-process rights by holding him for nearly five months without an individualized assessment of whether he posed a danger or flight risk.
Aviles Perez was convicted in absentia in El Salvador in December 2025 and sentenced to 20 years for aggravated murder. Prosecutors said he and other MS-13 members chased down a victim, forced him to his knees and shot him repeatedly in the chest, back and face.
His history in California isn’t exactly comforting either.
Police arrested Aviles Perez in Monterey in 2023 after he allegedly swung a machete at a homeless man. He was convicted following that incident but later released. ICE arrested him again in San Diego on March 26 and held him pending removal to El Salvador.
Then came Ohta’s ruling.
The Biden-appointed judge did not rule that Aviles Perez was harmless or clear him of wrongdoing. Instead, she found the government had provided him “no process before or after his detention” to establish that continued detention was justified.
She ordered him released and barred ICE from detaining him again unless an immigration judge first holds a bond hearing and determines renewed detention is warranted.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin erupted Saturday.
“This radical activist judge has put American lives at risk by releasing a wanted murderer,” Mullin said, noting that this was the second time Aviles Perez had been released in California.
ICE had him.
El Salvador has a 20-year murder sentence waiting for him.
And “The Witch” is back out in California.
DBS WIRE SOURCES
- Fox News — MS-13 murder convict ‘The Witch’ released in California without a bond hearing
- Department of Homeland Security — DHS blasts release of MS-13 member wanted for murder in El Salvador
- New York Post — San Diego judge releases MS-13 member known as ‘The Witch’
- Federal court docket — Judge Jinsook Ohta’s Aug. 26 order in Aviles Perez case
- DOJ — Federal government challenges separate release of convicted MS-13 murderer from immigration custody
