NEW YORK – A man who illegally entered the US and skipped an immigration hearing after being released at the southern border has been taken into custody and accused of raping a 5-year-old girl on Long Island. Investigators also believe there may be additional victims, officials revealed on Friday.
Wilson Castillo Diaz, 27, is a Honduras national. The illegal immigrant is accused of attacking the little girl in Westbury last month, according to Nassau County Police.
Details regarding the traumatic crime were not released. It is unclear whether Diaz knew the child prior to the alleged rape, or who reported it to law enforcement authorities.
According to the criminal complaint filed against Diaz, he raped the girl in his bedroom on the afternoon of Oct. 16, and also showed her pornographic images on his TV, the New York Post reported.
Following the sexual assault, the child was taken to a local hospital for a medical evaluation, police said.
Investigators were continuing with the case and trying to determine if the man had victimized others, according to Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder.
“In this case, this 27-year-old man did not wake up one day and decide ‘I’m going to rape a five-year-old girl.’ So we believe there may be more victims out there,” Ryder said.
In April 2014 when he was 16, Diaz illegally crossed into the US near Rio Grande, Texas, as an unaccompanied minor, local police and federal law-enforcement sources confirmed. At the time, he was taken into custody by US Border Patrol agents and later released after being served with a notice to appear before an immigration judge.
However, Diaz then failed to appear at his immigration court hearing, law enforcement officials said.
In 2016, he was ordered removed in absentia for missing his court date, according to sources, the New York Post reported.
Diaz was living in Westbury at the time of his arrest. It’s unclear when he arrived in New York, or how long he’d been living there prior to the alleged child-rape.
“I can’t stress enough how disheartening this is that this crime could occur against such a young girl who had her innocence taken away from her,” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said, adding that the man accused of the horrific offense “should not have been in this country.”
“Nassau County is not a sanctuary county, and for good reason, because we try to keep out illegal migrants who haven’t been vetted. We don’t know who they are. We don’t know where they came from. We don’t know if they have a criminal record,” Blakeman, a Republican, continued.
“But unfortunately, our state is a sanctuary state and the policies in Washington have made us a sanctuary country.”
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have issued a detainer for Diaz, police said. This means he will be deported once the criminal proceedings against him take place.
Last Wednesday, Diaz was arraigned on several charges, which include rape, attempted rape and endangering the welfare of a child.
He is currently being held in the Nassau County Jail on a $200,000 cash bond.
