A Guatemalan immigrant who was identified by Richmond police as the central figure in a potential mass shooting plot on July 4 was sentenced Thursday to 5½ months in federal prison for re-entering the U.S. after having been deported.
U.S. District Judge M. Hannah Lauck imposed the punishment against Rolman Balcarcel-Bavagas, 38, during a 35-minute sentencing hearing that centered almost entirely on his immigration violation. The term was near the high end of federal discretionary sentencing guidelines, which ranged from no time to six months.
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Balcarcel-Bavagas pleaded guilty to the offense Aug. 25. He faces no charges related to the alleged mass shooting plot.
The judge ruled it would be legally inappropriate for her to take into account that “there were some very serious firearms” recovered by police in the house where Balcarcel-Bavagas was living because there was no evidence tying him to the guns. His housemate, Julio Alvarado Dubon, 52, has been charged with illegally possessing two AR-15-style rifles and a semiautomatic pistol that were discovered in his room during a search.
The government said Balcarcel-Bavagas illegally entered the U.S. on three occasions and had been deported twice before. “The defendant’s repeated unlawful entries into the United States illustrates the defendant’s determination and persistence in disregarding and circumventing laws,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kashan Pathan said.
Balcarcel-Bavagas will be deported to his native country of Guatemala after serving his term. He’ll get credit for the four-plus months he’s been incarcerated since his July 5 arrest.
Prosecutors noted that defendants convicted in the Eastern District of Virginia frequently receive sentences equivalent to the length of time they served upon arrest, which allows them to be more quickly deported. But in certain cases involving defendants with repeated illegal incursions into the U.S. — such as in Balcarcel-Bavagas’ case — a sentence that exceeds the time they already served is warranted, prosecutors said.
“Given his recidivist conduct, the defendant needs to be specifically deterred from re-entering the United States a fourth time,” Pathan said in seeking a six-month term. Balcarcel-Bavagas’ attorney, John Martin, noted that his client has no criminal history and urged a sentence of time served.
“This is the first criminal conviction he’s ever had,” Martin said of the immigration offense.
Four months ago, Balcarcel-Bavagas and Dubon were accused by former Richmond police Chief Gerald Smith during a July 6 news conference of planning a mass shooting at a Fourth of July gathering at Dogwood Dell. But Richmond and federal prosecutors ultimately determined there was no evidence to prosecute the two men on charges related to such an event.
In court papers filed late last month, federal prosecutors said they lack evidence to prove Balcarcel-Bavagas was part of a mass shooting plot, but added that law enforcement acted “lawfully and appropriately” when investigating a tip from a concerned citizen about a potential mass shooting.
“The United States lacks evidence now to prove beyond a preponderance of the evidence that [Balcarcel-Bavagas] was planning to shoot people at a big event on the 4th of July or commit other acts of violence,” Pathan wrote in the government’s sentencing memorandum.
During an Oct. 31 evidentiary hearing for Dubon, who is charged with illegally possessing several firearms that the tipster feared would be used in the mass shooting, federal prosecutors introduced as exhibits a chain of internal Richmond police emails that described the precise nature of the tip authorities received about a potential July 4 mass shooting. They confirm that police received no specifics on the time or the location of the purported event.
The first report indicated that Balcarcel-Bavagas, known to the tipster as “Chapin,’ intended to “shoot up schools, events.”
The tip was soon refined after a Spanish-speaking officer contacted the tipster, who advised that Chapin had an AR-15 rifle and “other big weapons” and was planning on “shooting up a large gathering event on July 4th,” according to copies of the emails filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond.
The tipster further advised that Chapin was associated with a Mexican gang known as “Los Zetas” and formerly was an enforcer within the gang.
Martin noted in court papers that his client “had the misfortune of being identified in a ‘tip’ provided to law enforcement” while he was “living and working peacefully in the United States.”
The department emails further undercut Smith’s claim during a July 6 news conference that Dogwood Dell had been targeted for the mass shooting. Smith resigned from the force Oct. 25 amid growing scrutiny about his statements. An official cause was not given.
In August, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that Smith’s own department had provided him information in writing before his news conference that the location of any potential mass shooting incident was “unknown,” according to records the newspaper obtained under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
Martin said Balcarcel-Bavagas first came to the U.S. in 2007 to flee gang violence in Guatemala. He was raised in a comfortable “middle income, working class” environment but his family’s financial resources “proved attractive to organized crime members, who attempted to entice him to work for them.”
When Balcarcel-Bavagas refused, he was assaulted by several people until he was unconscious and then run over by a motorcycle, suffering multiple wounds and a traumatic brain injury, Martin noted, quoting from a pre-sentence report. He was left for dead but eventually recovered.
Martin said out of fear of leading crime members to his family, Balcarcel-Bavagas has not maintained contact with family members in Guatemala, but regularly sends $100 to $300 per month to support three of his four children. In the U.S., Balcarcel-Bavagas has worked as an electrician during his entire stay, most recently with Morris Co. in Charlottesville, and before that Hernandez Contractors in Richmond, Martin said.
“Neither the [U.S.] Probation Office nor the government have taken issue with Mr. Balcarcel’s claim that he entered the United States in large part to escape violence at the hands of organized crime,” Martin said. The government’s pre-sentence report “recounts Mr. Balcarcel’s version of these events and backs them up with hospital records and reports of physical scars on his body.”