An illegal immigrant has been arrested and slapped with multiple child-rape charges in Martha’s Vineyard — just months after being freed from prison for strangling someone, federal officials said.
Brazilian national Warley Neto, 24, was taken into custody by the feds in the upmarket liberal enclave on Aug. 23 after he was indicted on five counts of raping a Massachusetts minor and five counts of enticing a minor under 16 earlier this year, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
Neto had illegally crossed into the US near Paso Del Norte, Texas, in March 2018 but was released from custody after being served with a notice to appear before an immigration judge at a later date, authorities said.
He popped back up on ICE’s radar in February last year after he was arrested by local cops in Martha’s Vineyard on a slew of charges — including strangulation, assault and battery on a family or household member and threat to commit a crime.
Neto, who was found guilty on the charges in June 2023, was sentenced to a year in prison but was freed after the Edgartown District Court suspended all but 90 days of the sentence, according to the feds.
Just months later, he was re-arrested and indicted in Dukes County Superior Court on the rape charges, federal officials said.
Details on the attacks Neto allegedly carried out — including who he targeted, when and where — weren’t immediately available.
He had been held in the Dukes County Jail in the wake of his January arrest on the rape charges, but was recently transferred into ICE custody after Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston lodged an immigration detainer against him late last month.
It wasn’t clear when Neto first made his way to Martha’s Vineyard, or if he was among the planeloads of migrants shipped to Martha’s Vineyard by Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022.
“Warley Neto allegedly repeatedly assaulted a Massachusetts child and represents a significant threat to the safety of our neighborhoods,” said Todd M. Lyons, the director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston’s field office.
“We are grateful for the cooperation of the Dukes County Sheriff’s Office for prioritizing public safety and allowing Neto’s safe transfer of custody to ERO.
“Too often local jurisdictions refuse to honor immigration detainers and release dangerous offenders back into the community to reoffend. ERO Boston will continue to apprehend and remove the most egregious noncitizen offenders from New England.”
ERO is tasked with detaining and removing illegal immigrants from the US — including at the order of immigration judges with the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review.
The agency is run separately from Department of Homeland Security and ICE.
