It Took a Village to Bring Justice for Baby Villalobos

It Took a Village to Bring Justice for Baby Villalobos
Joe Gratz | Flickr

On September 15, 2019, in a rental in Amherst, MA, Isaac Villalobos gave his 4-month-old son, via a syringe, a fatal dose of an adult sleeping medication, a crushed Equate brand pill dissolved in water.

When the infant turned “blue and was not breathing,” Villalobos called 911. A medical examiner, affiliated with Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, MA decreed that the poor baby had died from acute doxylamine intoxication.

Villalobos, who also went by the alias Angel M. Carattini-Rivera, was arrested in Maryland this past July and extradited to Massachusetts, concluding a three-year (!) investigation of the case which led to a grand jury indictment. He originally pled guilty to a manslaughter charge, but later changed his plea, on 12/28/22, to “assault and battery on a child causing substantial injury.” The presiding judge accepted his plea. He will serve five to seven years in prison.

The 35-year-old Villalobos is an illegal alien.

The official press releases, from the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office communications department, merely describe him as “a former Amherst man.” An article from the media outlet MassLive also never mentions his immigration status; instead he is described as a “former Amherst resident.” The AP merely reports that he is a “father.”

The Daily Hampshire Gazette, the paper of record where the tragedy occurred, does report at the very end of one article that Villalobos faces deportation due “to being an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador.”

The information entities not disclosing this perp’s immigration status is both odd and irresponsible. Is it because Massachusetts is a de facto sanctuary state? Still, what happened to the public’s right to know? Those migrants who have trespassed into our country are in violation of Title 8 Section 1325 of the U.S. Code. And not a few of them, according the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, go on to commit battery, assault, robbery, domestic violence, and sex crimes.

Besides the obfuscation, ponder, for a minute, the drama and downstream costs involved in bringing a defendant, like Villalobos, to justice. An individual, by the way, who should not have been in the United States in the first place.

- The relationship with the baby mama which produced the innocent child.

- The living arrangement with the baby mama (and several other children) in housing that should have gone to the law-abiding.

- The 911 dispatcher answering the call, as well as the emergency medical services team that drove to the scene of the incident.

- The costly trip to the emergency room, the hospital personnel who cared for the child, and the medical examiner’s work and findings.

- The Amherst police department officers and Massachusetts State Police troopers involved with the investigation of the death of the baby.

- The personnel involved in the issuance of the arrest warrant for Villalobos in all fifty states.

- The cost of locating Villalobos in Maryland and extraditing him to the Bay State.

- The subsequent court appearances in western Massachusetts, the selection of the grand jury, the defense attorneys, the immigration officials, and so forth and so on.

- The cost of incarcerating him now for at least five years.

This is a large cast - a dystopian version of an ‘all the king’s horses and all the king’s men’ and an unsustainable model. Isaac Villalobos is only one illegal alien in one state in one municipality in a country with fifty states, thousands of counties, and tens of thousands of municipalities, all of which are quite preoccupied with ‘regular’ criminals.

According to Dr. Steve Camarota, an immigration number cruncher, simply deporting one lawbreaker (and keeping him or her deported) costs about $6000 vs. a net fiscal drain of over $65,000 per illegal when he or she stays in the United States and doesn’t commit further crimes.

Alas. Respect for the rule-of-law, when it comes to this issue, is a thing of the past.

RIP, Baby Villalobos.

For further reading: Porous Borders and Downstream Costs: The Cost of illegal Immigration on State, County, and Local Governments


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