(Wisconsin Right Now) — Note: we are profiling a different case every day until the election of noncitizens held on ICE detainers for serious crimes in Wisconsin Jails. Read the stories here.
A fuller timeline in the case of Alejandro Coronel-Zarate raises serious questions about Madison and Minneapolis police and the Hennepin County Jail. Since the alleged Venezuelan gang member crossed the border in 2023, he’s accused of leaving a trail of abused females in his wake. Why did it take until now for ICE to detain him?
A Minnesota jail took alleged Tren de Aragua Venezuelan gang member Alejandro Coronel-Zarate into custody for almost three days but freed him into the community even though Madison police had already established probable cause that the noncitizen choked, beat, and threatened to burn and kill a terrified Madison woman, new records obtained by Wisconsin Right Now show.
The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department—which has a “sanctuary” policy of not cooperating with ICE and is located in a sanctuary county—released Coronel-Zarate, 26, of Venezuela, on Nov. 20, 2023, even though court records show that Madison police had already obtained the key evidence that was eventually used to issue felony suffocation charges in Wisconsin on Dec. 1. There’s no evidence they told ICE. By the time Madison filed charges, Coronel-Zarate was in the wind, and a warrant was issued when he did not show up for court.
The key questions:
Why didn’t Madison police go get him when the Minnesota jail decided to release him? Did they tell ICE that he was accused of a violent crime?
Why didn’t Minneapolis and Hennepin County authorities tell ICE that he was sitting in jail so a detainer could be placed on him?
They won’t say. Why aren’t the media asking? It’s worth noting that Hennepin County is in Tim Walz’s Minnesota. Although he doesn’t run that Sheriff’s Department or Jail, he does set the tone from the top. According to Fox News, Walz once compared an ICE raid to terrorism and defended sanctuary cities.
Coronel-Zarate turned up again this August in Prairie du Chien, where he is accused of attacking a juvenile and woman. That case has propelled Coronel-Zarate into the apex of the country’s immigration debate, but the bungled Minnesota release in the Madison case allowed him to remain on the streets, travel to Prairie du Chien, and allegedly commit the new attack.
Former President Donald Trump, who has been hammering Kamala Harris over the weak Biden-Harris immigration policies, was in Prairie du Chien on Saturday. The area’s congressman, Derrick Van Orden, has also highlighted the case, expressing outrage. He is running against a leftist political operative, Rebecca Cooke.
Read the Hennepin County Booking Sheet for Coronel-Zarate here.
The corporate media—which are ludicrously fixating instead on fact-checking Congressman Van Orden about a side issue—aren’t asking the right questions. The liberal-leaning Wisconsin Watch jumped the gun and wrote, “There is no evidence sanctuary policies meant to shield people from immigration authorities freed Venezuelan Alejandro Coronel Zarate before he was jailed Sept. 5, 2024, on a sexual assault charge in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.”
But that statement doesn’t tell the full story—not by a long shot—because there is no evidence anyone told ICE that he was in jail.
Essentially, the corporate media are in overdrive trying to prove that Van Orden misspoke when he said Coronel-Zarate “was released from both of these places because they’re sanctuary cities,” meaning Minneapolis and Madison. He said that Coronel-Zarate shouldn’t have been allowed into the country in the first place and should have been arrested and deported from either Minneapolis or Madison.
It’s true that he wasn’t released from Dane County’s jail because he was never in it, but that’s only because Madison police didn’t go pick him up! The chief admits they already had probable cause.
Contrary to Wisconsin Watch’s misleading report, the Hennepin County Jail does function as a sanctuary for illegal immigrants because, since 2021, it refuses to honor ICE detainers. There’s no evidence ICE was even aware that Coronel-Zarate was there. (In contrast, some jails, such as one in Waukesha, Wisconsin, fully cooperate with ICE so ICE can figure out which inmates are illegally here. The Minnesota booking sheet makes no mention of an ICE hold.)
As for Madison police, their policy is to only enforce ICE detainers sometimes. Why didn’t they tell ICE that Coronel-Zarate was a suspect in a violent crime investigation?
ICE, Madison, and Minneapolis police did not respond to requests for comment. Hennepin County told us to file an open records request; we did, and they only released the immigration policy and booking sheet.
Here’s the FULL timeline on the case of Alejandro Coronel-Zarate
Sept. 2023: According to Prairie du Chien police, Coronel-Zarate entered the U.S. around this time, crossing the border in the El Paso, Texas, area.
Nov. 5, 2023: Prairie du Chien police say Coronel-Zarate was arrested in Minneapolis for receiving stolen property on this date. The date appears to be in error. The Minnesota booking sheet says he wasn’t arrested until the 17th.
Nov. 16, 2023: A Madison woman reports to Madison police a horrific sequence of events, saying that Coronel-Zarate choked her, punched her repeatedly in the face, threatened to kill and burn her and her child, and wouldn’t let her leave his car.
Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that “police were contacted about Coronel Zarate regarding a battery case in November 2023. Officers established probable cause to arrest him, but he fled the scene before officers arrived. Despite extensive efforts, including the deployment of a K-9 unit, he was not located.” This statement makes it clear that officers had probable cause to arrest Coronel-Zarate before he fled—i.e. before he turned up in Minnesota’s jail.
Nov. 17, 2023: The Hennepin County booking sheet says that Coronel-Zarate was arrested on Nov. 17, 2023, at 11:16 p.m. by Minneapolis police. The reason given was “probable cause.” The accusation was receiving/concealing stolen property. Wisconsin Watch claimed the arrest was for a car theft associated with the Madison case. “Identified as a Madison vehicle theft suspect, Coronel Zarate was arrested in Minneapolis and jailed,” they wrote.
Nov. 18, 2023: Zarate is booked into the Hennepin County Jail at 12:05 p.m.
Nov. 20, 2023: Zarate is released from the Hennepin County Jail at 12:12 p.m. The reason given? “36 hours expired.” No ICE hold is indicated; Madison police didn’t come to get him. Wisconsin Watch says he was released when prosecutors in Minnesota refused to file charges.
According to the Journal Sentinel, Barnes said Madison police “received a stolen vehicle report that identified him as the suspect. He was located and arrested in Minnesota later that day, but ‘he was ultimately released from the Hennepin County Jail.’” In other words, he is saying that Madison police knew that Coronel-Zarate was in the Minnesota jail, although it’s not 100 percent clear from the newspaper’s report on what day Madison police knew this, and Barnes isn’t talking to us.
Bizarrely, the Journal Sentinel did not ask Barnes the obvious questions: If his department knew that Coronel-Zarate had been located and arrested in Minnesota, why didn’t they go get him when he was released, since they had probable cause? Did Madison police receive the information before or after his Minnesota release?
In addition, the complaint reveals that Coronel-Zarate was homeless and living occasionally in an acquaintance’s car in Dane County, Wisconsin, before fleeing. Not picking him up was a virtual guarantee that he would disappear. He is listed as “transient” on the Hennepin County booking sheet.
Dec. 1, 2023: Zarate is charged in Dane County Circuit Court with the attack on the woman. According to the 2023 criminal complaint, he was charged with strangulation and suffocation; false imprisonment; misdemeanor battery; and disorderly conduct in Dane County, Wisconsin. The date of offense was Nov. 16, 2023. A warrant was issued for his arrest because he didn’t show up for court.
Aug. 26, 2004: Prairie du Chien police say he arrived in that community.
Sept. 5, 2024: At approximately 12:30 p.m., the Prairie du Chien Police Department “responded to the 300 block of East Wells Street for a physical disturbance. Upon arrival, officers received information that a male suspect had been physically and sexually violent towards an adult female. A female juvenile was also located and found to have been injured during the physical altercation that took place. As a result of the investigation, the male suspect was arrested and taken to the Crawford County Jail.”
He was booked into the Wisconsin jail for domestic disorderly conduct, two counts of domestic battery, strangulation/suffocation, physical abuse to a child, disorderly conduct, and two counts of 2nd-degree sexual assault, as well as for the Dane County warrants.
Sept. 6, 2024, Crawford County Circuit Court Judge Luke Steiner “imposed a $10,000 cash bond for the release of Mr. Coronel Zarate,” Prairie Du Chien police say. They say that ICE has now placed a detainer on Coronel-Zarate, meaning if he ever posts bail they will have a chance to come pick him up.
What is Alejandro Coronel-Zarate accused of doing in Dane County, specifically?
The criminal complaint says the victim came forward and was “crying and appeared to be terrified.” Every time police arrived, she would “become terrified believing the suspect had returned, as she would then try to leave the interview and run back into her apartment.”
The criminal complaint further alleges:
She said that she and the defendant were driving home from the DMV with her baby in the back seat when they got into a verbal disagreement and he told her to shut up. She began to get out of the vehicle when they arrived at a parking lot but he made threats to her “stating he would kill her baby if she got out of the car.”
The threats scared her so she got back in the car. He drove away to Fitchburg and then parked at an unknown location. She again tried to get out of the car, but he grabbed her by the back of her neck and shoulder area, preventing her from leaving. He then pulled her back into the vehicle and began punching her “many times” with a closed, left fist. He had “punched her multiple times in the left eye area,” according to the complaint.
She began screaming and said she was going to leave the car, but he grabbed her throat with his hand and began to squeeze his hand around her neck, trying to choke her for approximately 30 seconds. She had trouble breathing and felt pain. Police saw a bruise on her left forearm, the complaint notes. She wriggled free, and he took his hands off her and calmed down. He drove her back to her address.
When they got to the apartment parking lot, though, he threatened her again saying he was going to light the car on fire with her still in the car and was threatening to burn her kids. She eventually left the car. “She believed the defendant is capable of carrying out these threats.” Her niece noticed how distraught and upset she appeared and asked her what happened. He has tattoos along each arm and on his neck, the complaint says. She told police she and the defendant were just acquaintances. He is “homeless and oftentimes will sleep in her vehicle,” the complaint says.
This article was originally published at Wisconsin Right Now and reprinted here with permission.
Jim Piwowarczyk
Jim Piwowarczyk is the owner of Wisconsin Right Now.
Jessica McBride
Jessica McBride, Milwaukee journalist, and a Wisconsin Right Now contributor, is a national award-winning journalist and journalism educator with more than 25 years in journalism.
