A federal judge who threw out a case against an illegal Mexican immigrant arrested for striking ICE agents with his car chose to let the accused criminal off “well before the parties ever stepped foot in his courtroom,” a bombshell appeal claims.
In a blistering 79-page legal brief filed on Wednesday, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli challenged federal Judge Fernando M. Olguin’s dismissal of the case against Carlitos Ricardo Parias, who was charged in October with assaulting a federal officer after allegedly ramming law enforcement vehicles while attempting to flee an immigration arrest.
The appeal also cites two other cases tossed by Olguin — including one against a pair of alleged anti-cop agitators accused of torching a police car, and another against an alleged illegal immigrant accused of handling stolen guns.
The Harvard-educated judge, appointed to California’s sprawling Central District by President Obama in 2012, held in dismissing Parias’ charges that the alleged attacker was denied access to a lawyer while in immigration detention.
But Olguin had already “made up his mind” to throw out the case, Essayli wrote, describing the court’s handling of it as “premeditated performance.”
“None of this was the fair, impartial assessment of legal and factual questions that judicial review requires,” the brief added.
The stunning appeal of Parias’ case comes as Olguin’s history of dismissing charges is revealed in the brief.
In August, he dismissed a federal case against Marco Antonio Arreola-Arreola, an accused illegal immigrant from Mexico charged with criminal possession of firearms, according to court documents.
Arreola-Arreola was allegedly caught on video inside a Downtown Los Angeles warehouse handling stolen Browning rifles that were part of a batch of approximately 650 swiped from trains heading from the Port of Los Angeles to Missouri, the documents show.
Olguin tossed the case because Arreola-Arreola had already been taken into immigration custody pending deportation, according to court documents. He was removed from the US, and the criminal case against him is still under appeal.
Before that, in 2022, the judge dismissed a case against Nathan Wilson and Christopher Beasley, who two years earlier were charged with arson after attending a protest over the death of George Floyd in Santa Monica and allegedly setting a police car on fire before posting a video of it on social media, court records show.
Attorneys for the pair argued the men were unconstitutionally singled out for prosecution based on the belief that they held anti-government views.
Olguin agreed that Wilson and Beasley were entitled to seek evidence from the government to support their claim and dismissed their charges after prosecutors declined to provide it, records show.
Lawyers from the Department of Justice appealed the ruling, arguing that Olguin incorrectly determined there was a discriminatory intent behind the prosecution.
In 2024, a federal appeals court reinstated the charges, sending the case back to Olguin.
In his concurring opinion, Judge Patrick J. Bumatay wrote that by dismissing the indictments, “the district court far overstepped its boundaries.” The case against the two men remains ongoing.
Olguin did not respond to to The Post’s request for comment.
Parias’ case made headlines last year, as the 45-year-old was known for documenting immigration enforcement on TikTok under the name Richard LA.
During a targeted immigration enforcement stop in South Los Angeles, federal agents surrounded Parias’ Toyota Camry, leading him to allegedly ram their vehicles while attempting to flee.
Officers responded by opening fire, hitting Parias in the elbow. A deputy US Marshal was wounded by a ricochet bullet.
Essayli argued in his brief that “ICE was legally required to detain” Parias because he was in the US illegally and arrested for assaulting a law enforcement officer.
Olguin had threatened to dismiss the case at the outset, Essayli wrote in his brief, and “proclaimed that defendant’s (mandatory) immigration detention was unlawful before defendant was even detained, and worked backward from that premise.”
“That strayed far outside the court’s proper judicial role,” the prosecutor said.
Parias is currently being held at Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County on immigration violations, even though his criminal case has been dismissed.
His attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
Upon his nomination for a seat as a federal judge, Olguin was questioned about his 1989 master’s thesis regarding US involvement in Central America.
In the thesis, Olguin wrote that “the United States has been instrumental in establishing a Central American political system ‘characterized by the dominance of a wealthy landed elite governing…almost always with the collaboration of the military.’”
He added that “this system has resulted in extreme inequality, injustice, and poverty in most of the region,” while “local leaders have obtained US support in putting down the indigenous revolutionary movements by labeling them ‘communist.’”
In response to questioning, Olguin stated that he is “committed to the rule of law and will apply and uphold all laws of the United States, irrespective of my personal views on any particular area of law.”
Essayli’s appeal in the case against Parias will be considered by a panel of judges.
