03-04-2025
Man charged in rape on W&OD trail breaks cell door open
A man charged with raping a woman on the Washington & Old Dominion trail escaped his jail cell at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center last month and tried to enter a nurse's station while someone was inside, according to court documents.
Denis Humberto Navarette Romero, 32, 'freed himself by banging hard on his cell from the inside to the point that the cell came open,' according to a criminal complaint, and entered the jail for an unspecified amount of time before he was pepper sprayed and restrained in the March 17 incident.
The damage left the cell inoperable, the records state. It was not clear exactly how Navarette Romero was able to disable the locked door. He 'damaged the fastening of the cell,' according to the complaint.
Kathryn Pavluchuk, general counsel at the Fairfax County Sheriff's Office, which runs the facility, said in an email that the security measures 'worked as they should' after his escape and prevented him from leaving the facility. She declined to answer additional questions about the incident, including whether security protocol will change as a result.
The escape resulted in an additional felony charge for Navarette Romero, whose arrest in connection with a rape on the popular walkway in November came just four days after he finished a jail term for exposing himself to a woman walking her dog along the same trail.
His lawyer, Thomas F. Koerner Jr., declined to comment.
His arrest in November drew criticism from local leaders who questioned whether he should have served more time for his exposure conviction given his extensive criminal history. Officials in response said that history was difficult to piece together, in part due to his status as an undocumented immigrant and varied spellings of his name.
A review of records in the region showed at least three versions of his name, which authorities confirmed connect back to Navarette Romero based on a matching FBI number and fingerprints. He has incurred more than a dozen convictions across Northern Virginia and D.C. in recent years, including for sex-based offenses, the records show.
'What is disturbing is the number of times this individual has been arrested and released,' then-Herndon Police Chief Maggie DeBoard said at a news conference in November. 'He has continued to reoffend and his behavior has escalated to a rape in a very public area.'
Republican state leaders held up his arrest on the rape charge as proof that so-called sanctuary policies preventing local law enforcement from cooperating with immigration authorities are harmful, with Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) calling on Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Steve Descano (D) to resign.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) cited the Navarette Romero case in proposing state budget language that would have required local police and jailers across the state to comply with federal immigration authorities and withheld funding from those who refused. The language was not approved by the General Assembly. In February, he signed an executive order instructing state police and prison officers to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
Pavluchuk of the Fairfax County Sheriff's Office said in November that federal immigration authorities are notified every time an undocumented person is arrested and then fingerprinted at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. But in the four times Navarette Romero had been incarcerated at the jail, Pavluchuk said, the sheriff's office never received a detainer or judicial immigration warrant from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
A spokesperson for ICE's office in the D.C. area said agents interviewed Navarette Romero and filed a detainer with the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center on Nov. 26, after he was charged for rape. They did not say whether they had sought past detainers for Navarette Romero.
Navarette Romero is a Honduran national who worked in construction and has lived in the Fairfax community for 11 years. Court and Herndon police records appear to document bouts of homelessness and challenges with mental health and substance use.
Police found him drinking outside a 7-Eleven, smoking marijuana behind a McDonald's and sleeping in baseball dugouts and parking garages, records show. Once, an officer reported approaching him as he lay facedown in Bready Park, sober but distraught that he had nowhere to go and asking to be deported.
Navarette Romero is next scheduled to appear in Fairfax County General District Court for a preliminary hearing on June 11.
