Haitian national deported to Mexico despite pending Miami-Dade rape case – NBC 6 South Florida
A Haitian man from Port-au-Prince was recently deported from South Florida to Mexico, despite his pending Miami-Dade criminal case where a woman accused him of severely beating and raping her, according to court officials.
Junior Joseph, 28, was arrested in January for an alleged April 2024 incident where a 24-year-old victim was found badly beaten and bleeding from the face, yelling “rape” and asking for help behind a home in the 900 block of Northwest 55th Street in Liberty City.
Miami-Dade Corrections
Miami-Dade Corrections Junior Christian Joseph
A young witness, who was getting ready for school, said she saw the victim running back and forth in the yard, bleeding from her nose, which appeared to be broken, the report said.
Another witness heard the woman screaming for help and heard a male saying “shut the f— up” and saw two men holding and grabbing the woman.
The victim was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center, where she had to be intubated and undergo surgery on her nose, wrist, jaw and lips and received stitches.
Joseph was arrested about nine months later and charged with sexual battery.
However, the victim’s hunt for justice collapsed on Tuesday during a hearing, when the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department announced that Joseph was deported to Mexico.
“Mexico? Why Mexico? asked Judge William Altfield.
“I don’t have an answer for that,” Patricia Jones Cummings, a legal advisor for corrections, responded.
It’s unclear why Joseph was deported to Mexico or why he was deported to begin with, despite Judge Altfield ordering the defendant to remain under corrections custody.
“He was supposed to be held, and he wasn’t,” Judge Altfield said during Tuesday’s hearing.
Jones Cummings responded by stating that state attorneys and all the parties involved “knew and have known for several weeks about this defendant being in ICE custody.”
State Attorney Christine Zahralban stated Tuesday they will try to work with the federal government “to have him extradited back, but I don’t hold a lot of hope there.”
It’s not the first time Miami-Dade corrections has allowed for a defendant facing serious charges to be deported.
NBC6 exclusively reported corrections deported Erwin Rommel Recinos Zuniga, a man facing 10 criminal charges, including manslaughter for a triple fatal crash in Miami.
According to corrections, several of their staff members could be disciplined for their actions in Zuniga’s case. However, nearly a year after the deportation, they have remained silent on the findings of their investigation into what went wrong.
NBC6 has reached out to the Miami Dade State Attorney’s Office, the Public Defender’s Office, Miami-Dade Corrections and ICE for this story, but we haven’t heard back yet.
