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Boston Globe
15-07-2025
- Boston Globe
Providence police chief denies helping ICE arrest alleged drug trafficker
Perez said police did not know why Get Rhode Island News Alerts Sign up to get breaking news and interesting stories from Rhode Island in your inbox each weekday. Enter Email Sign Up Related : Advertisement Social media video circulated on Sunday and Monday shows Providence police cruisers on the scene of the crash, and also standing on the stoop of a home next to ICE officers who are putting a man in handcuffs. It prompted alarm, including from Advertisement 'There were half a dozen Providence police officers in uniform near the individual who was detained,' Morales said. 'When it comes to trying to maintain public safety on the road and in a public street, that's a whole different story than actively being with the ICE officer.' 'The ICE agent is the one responsible for enforcing immigration law,' he added. Perez said police were on scene only because they received a call about multiple motor vehicle accidents. He said the report came in from the ICE agent, who called dispatch to report the crash. 'Our officers remained on the scene of ensure the safety of residents and to maintain order,' Perez said. Asked why officers stood by the ICE agents on the stoop as they made their arrest, Perez said officers only knocked on the door of the home in an effort to evacuate anyone who wanted to leave, as ICE was about to use force to enter the house to get the suspect, who had run inside after the crash. He said a woman who lives there asked Providence officers to help her and her children evacuate. But moments later, Mendoza Meza came out and voluntarily surrendered. 'We were not involved in a violent raid,' Perez said. That's not our job." He said he had no information about why the man was being pursued in the first place. A police report says the call about the crash came in from a 'government worker who wishes to be unnamed.' The crash report does not name the ICE agent, and does not attribute fault to any party, though it notes that the driver of the Toyota left the scene. Advertisement ICE criticized officials for failing to detain Mendoza Meza on their behalf in the first place. Covington said the agency issued a detainer against Mendoza Meza with the Adult Correctional Institutions on Aug. 24, 2023, but Mendoza Meza was released on bond in 2024, prompting ICE to locate him in the city. Covington said Mendoza Meza, 27, is a 'Honduran national and known member of MS-13,' and in the country illegally. It was not immediately clear if Meza had a lawyer or if he was still detained Monday night. The incident comes as fears remain high about immigration raids and arrests in the community. The Providence City Council recently Providence police do not cooperate with ICE on civil immigration enforcement, nor do they hold suspects who are wanted on administrative detainers alone. But city police will cooperate if they arrest someone for a crime and that person is wanted by ICE on a criminal warrant. Perez said no such requests have come through this year. Perez said this was the first time since Trump took office in January that Providence police ended up at the scene of an ICE raid. He said the local officers 'did not participate in or assist with any enforcement actions carried out by ICE.' 'We do not enforce federal immigration law, nor do we collaborate with ICE in its operations,' Perez said. 'When we respond to these locations, our number one priority is the safety of all involved.' Steph Machado can be reached at
Boston Globe
02-05-2025
- Boston Globe
Cranston man who assaulted 12-year-old R.I. girl, then tried to have her killed, sentenced to 35 years in state prison
Cardente was also ordered to have no contact with the girl, to register as a sex offender, to attend sex offender counseling, and to be subject to community supervision, officials said. Advertisement 'This defendant deserves every bit of the lengthy sentence he received for his terrible crimes,' Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said in a statement. 'While nothing can undo the pain caused, the young victim in this case demonstrated incredible courage by telling her story in her exceptional victim impact statement. She is an inspiration for victims everywhere.' Get Rhode Island News Alerts Sign up to get breaking news and interesting stories from Rhode Island in your inbox each weekday. Enter Email Sign Up An attorney listed for Cardente did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday morning. Cardente previously pleaded guilty in US District Court in Providence in March, after Related : Advertisement A sentencing hearing in that case is set for June 5, records show. At that time, a judge will decide whether Cardente will serve the federal and state sentences concurrently or consecutively, according to a spokesman for the US Attorney's Office. Federal prosecutors said Cardente, who had already been convicted for child molestation in 2014, first messaged the girl in December 2021 through the social media app, Snapchat. The two arranged to meet alongside a wooded area next to the middle school in Burrillville, R.I., according to Police Chief Stephen Lynch. Court records say Cardente picked up the girl there in his vehicle on Dec. 10, 2021. In signing the federal plea agreement, Cardente acknowledged he drove the girl to several places in Warwick and sexually assaulted her several times that day. After the girl was reported missing by her family, she was found by police on the side of Jefferson Boulevard late that night after Cardente learned authorities were looking for the two of them and left her there, according to Lynch. Cardente told police the two were Snapchat 'friends' that summer, according to the plea agreement, which includes facts of the case agreed on by Cardente and prosecutors. He told the girl he was 17 years old – despite being 27 at the time – and he was well aware she was only 12, authorities said. Then in February 2022, while he was incarcerated at the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston, he asked a person over the phone to kill the girl in exchange for $200 cash and $1,500 worth of tattoo equipment, according to the plea agreement. Advertisement 'I need her to end up dead, she's a witness, she needs to go,' Cardente said during the call. He also provided the girl's home address, according to the agreement. 'It ain't gonna bother me. I'm gonna go to sleep at night, so I'm gonna be fine with it,' he said, according to the agreement. 'I just need it done …. I just need it done before I get indicted,' Cardente added. Unbeknownst to him, Cardente was actually speaking to an undercover law enforcement officer. A federal grand jury returned an indictment against him months later in September 2022. He was indicted in state court in August 2023. Material from a previous Globe story was used in this report. Christopher Gavin can be reached at
Boston Globe
05-04-2025
- Boston Globe
R.I. judge reverses $160,000 award in wrongful conviction case
Sampson spent three years and 75 days at the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston, R.I., after he was wrongfully arrested in 2003 on one count of attempted larceny over $500 and after other, subsequent run-ins with law enforcement, according to the filings. In June 2024, Sampson filed a petition for compensation for wrongful conviction and imprisonment, as allowed under Get Rhode Island News Alerts Sign up to get breaking news and interesting stories from Rhode Island in your inbox each weekday. Enter Email Sign Up Gibney initially granted the petition on Dec. 6, 2024. But she wrote this week that emails between Sampson's attorney and counsel for the state had created some miscommunication that impacted how the government responded to the case. Advertisement 'It is clear to the Court that the State failed to respond because it was awaiting an order granting the Motion to Amend, and Petitioner's assurances that it would not hold it in default further led to the illusion that it had such time,' Gibney wrote in her decision on Tuesday. 'It is also clear from those e-mails that the State was intending to challenge the Petition on the merits.' Therefore, Gibney granted the state's request to vacate the previous decision and provided the government 10 days to file a response to an amended petition. Advertisement Reached for comment by email on Friday, Shannah Kurland, an attorney representing Sampson, pointed to a brief she filed in response to the state's motion to reconsider the initial decision in January. In the filing, Kurland argued the state 'set forth no facts or legal argument that even plausibly approach the demanding standard for a motion to reconsider.' 'Rather, the State asks the Court to simply change its mind to accommodate the State's own failure, after five months and multiple extensions of time, to properly litigate Mr. Sampson's claim,' Kurland wrote. The state 'repeatedly laments that it was somehow prevented from answering or otherwise responding to Mr. Sampson's petition because of some amorphous 'confusion' clouding the proceedings,' Kurland added. 'There is no justification for the State's professed confusion over a common procedural event subject to a clear and easy-to-interpret chronology.' A spokesperson for the Rhode Island Attorney General's Office on Friday said the office 'does not have a comment beyond our court filings.' The decision to vacate is the latest development in Sampson's years-long back and forth with the judicial system. Sampson was arrested on June 28, 2003. According to court filings, he was disposing of wooden shingles from his vehicle in the woods in South Kingstown, R.I., that day. Around noon, Jessica Sparfven drove to a bike path near the woods and as she returned to her car later, she saw someone – from 20 feet away – reaching into the passenger-side window of her vehicle, Gibney wrote in her December decision. Sparfven yelled at the man, and he ran away. She found 'the face plate of her radio, her purse, her cell phone, and several CDs on the ground outside her car' and a screwdriver was also found on the ground nearby, Gibney wrote. Advertisement Sparfven described the man to police as a 'Black male, average height (5′10″), thin, wearing white tank top (no sleeves), red shorts and white sneakers or white shoes,' Gibney wrote. When Sampson heard sirens, he was frightened and went deeper into the woods, as his license was suspended, according to the filing. Only two days prior, he was warned by a judge that if he drove during the suspension, he'd have to serve a year in prison. An officer noticed the engine of Sampson's vehicle still running, and Sampson was later found wearing 'no shirt, dark red jean shorts, and black boots,' Gibney wrote, adding that 'multiple people in the area could have matched the description of the person Sparfven described,' yet Sampson was arrested. 'Although [Sparfven] never saw the face of the man breaking into her car, she was asked to go to the police station to see if she could identify [Sampson's] shorts as matching those worn by the man breaking into her car,' Gibney wrote. 'She failed to positively identify those shorts because she could not describe the shorts worn by the perpetrator. Despite that, [Sampson] was charged' with attempted larceny and a misdemeanor count of manipulation of a vehicle. Sampson was released the following day, but was later arrested and charged with possession of a controlled substance on Sept. 1, 2003, presented as a bail violator, and held at the ACI. He pled guilty to the charge on Oct. 31, 2003, and was sentenced to 34 months, with 60 days to serve retroactive to Sept. 1. Advertisement On the night he was released, he accepted a ride from an acquaintance in a vehicle that Sampson did not know was stolen until the pair was stopped by police, according to Gibney. Sampson was arrested and brought back to the ACI for another month until prosecutors determined Sampson was not involved in the theft of the vehicle. Although he was not charged, Sampson was declared a bail violator on Dec. 18, 2003, and he was re-incarcerated. In February 2004, Sampson was convicted at trial on the larceny and misdemeanor charges from the alleged car break-in, even after evidence was presented showing Sparfven did not see the face of the would-be thief and failed to identify Sampson as the suspect, Gibney wrote. A police officer also testified he was unable to lift any fingerprints from the screwdriver found at the scene. Sampson was sentenced to prison for 10 years with four years to serve and the remaining six suspended for the attempted larceny charge, and a one-year suspended sentence on the misdemeanor charge. A motion for a new trial was denied. Sampson was eventually released on parole on April 26, 2006, but was later arrested again on Sept. 20, 2006, and charged with possession of a controlled substance 'despite attempting to live a life of sobriety' and returned to the ACI, Gibney wrote. He pleaded nolo contendere to the charge the following month, and received a three-year-suspended sentence, but he was declared a parole violator and thus remained incarcerated until June 14, 2007. Meanwhile, Sampson had been working to appeal his 2004 conviction since soon after his trial, arguing Sparfven failed to identify him as the suspect and that the state failed to present evidence the items the would-be thief tried to steal were worth more than $500. Advertisement The state eventually conceded his motion for a new trial should have been granted because of the lack of evidence, and officials moved to vacate his conviction for attempted larceny, Gibney wrote. Sampson dropped his appeal on the misdemeanor charge and on Oct. 13, 2010, the Rhode Island Supreme Court accepted the state's concession of error and vacated the conviction. Christopher Gavin can be reached at
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Yahoo
R.I. sex offender admits to enticing 12-year-old girl for sex and murder-for-hire plot to kill her
A convicted sex offender has admitted to enticing a 12-year-old girl for sex and then launching a murder-for-hire plot to kill her, the U.S. Attorney said Thursday. Chander J. Cardente, 30, pleaded guilty in federal court on Thursday to enticement of a minor, commission of a felony while being required to register as a sex offender, and interstate murder for hire, Acting U.S. Attorney Sara Miron Bloom said in a statement. Cardente is scheduled to be sentenced on April 23. He is being held without bail. Cardente was previously convicted in a Rhode Island state court for child molestation, which required him to register as a sex offender, Miron Bloom said. According to court documents, in the summer of 2021, Cardente, while posing as a 17-year-old, began communicating with the minor victim through a messaging app. He told the girl that he was interested in having sex with her. In December 2021, he met the girl a short distance from her middle school, drove her to various locations in Rhode Island, and engaged in sexual contact with her multiple times, prosecutors said. Cardente was subsequently arrested and detained in state custody. While being held at the Adult Correctional Institutions, Cardente communicated by telephone with another person, expressing his intent that the girl be killed. In a conversation with an undercover law enforcement officer, Cardente told the officer that the victim needed 'to end up dead' because she was 'a witness,' prosecutors said. Cardente offered the undercover officer $200 in cash and equipment worth $1,500 for the murder-for-hire plot, prosecutors said. Homeland Security Investigations; police departments in Warwick, Cranston, and Burrillville; Rhode Island State Police; and the Rhode Island Department of Corrections Special Investigations Unit investigated the case. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
