Queens court released an illegal alien charged with rape on time served...then the feds got involved less than a month later

NEW YORK, NY - The New York Post reports that an illegal alien from Ecuador entered into a plea deal with prosecutors in the borough of Queens, which would have allowed him to avoid jail on a rape charge. Unfortunately for the bad guy, the feds picked him up less than a month after he was set free. 

Kali Cardenas, 27, was nabbed in a Department of Homeland Security raid in Jamaica on Monday morning, only a few weeks after being cut loose in what The Post called a “horrifying 2023 rape and sex abuse case.” 

“DEANewYork continues, along with our @justicedept & other federal law enforcement partners, to assist @dhsgov with their immigration enforcement efforts targeting violent, illegal criminals,” DEA’s New York office said in a post on X. 

Federal immigration authorities said Cardenas arrived from Ecuador on a visitor visa in September 2016 but decided he didn’t want to return to the country after his legal status expired in July 2021, The Post said. 

Cardenas was accused of molesting a woman who passed out at a party in Jamaica on Jan. 29, 2023. The victim told police when she awoke, Cardenas was raping her, the criminal complaint said. 

Prosecutors were later able to recover Instagram messages between the victim and Cardenasd, where he “stated that he saw [her] sleeping” and “began touching [her] body,” the complaint read. 

“He got an erection when he was touching her and then started having sex with [her],” the court documents said. 

He was arrested and charged with first-degree rape and first-degree sexual assault. He faced five to 25 years in jail if convicted of the primary charge. However, prosecutors allowed Cardenas to plead guilty to third-degree rape as part of a plea deal that only required him to complete a one-year sex offender counseling program, which, if he passed, would result in no jail time. 

The charge was further reduced to third-degree sexual abuse, authorities said. He was sentenced on January 13 to time served and released, with the only caveat being the issuance of a protective order for him to stay away from the victim, records show. 

That all came crashing down for Cardenas on Monday after the feds busted him. 

His arrests came amid a slew of arrests by federal law enforcement agencies after President Trump issued an executive order directing the mass deportation of illegal aliens. Some have already been sent to their home countries, while the most violent have been sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.