A twice-deported Honduran illegal alien whose first deportation followed a Texas border arrest faces Louisiana charges after an alleged bomb threat aboard a United Airlines flight to New Orleans.
Rony Alexander Gomez-Alberto, 34, “allegedly attempted to storm the cockpit of a United flight while claiming to have a bomb, prompting a hijack alert,” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Tuesday.
Flight 2174 left Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and landed safely at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport around 11:10 p.m. Monday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The Boeing 737 MAX 9 carried 46 passengers and six crew members. The FAA said it would investigate.
Jefferson Parish sheriff’s deputies arrested Gomez-Alberto after the plane landed. The parish jail roster listed terrorizing and communicating false information of planned arson as booking charges and showed no bond set Wednesday morning.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana will decide whether to file federal charges, WDSU reported, citing the FBI.
ICE lodged a detainer with the sheriff’s office on Tuesday. A detainer asks a jail to notify ICE before releasing a person and to hold that person for up to 48 hours beyond the scheduled release so ICE can take custody.
Two deportations and a judge’s release order
Border Patrol arrested Gomez-Alberto in September 2011 after he entered the United States illegally near El Indio, Texas, and again in October 2014 after a crossing near Columbus, New Mexico. Federal authorities deported him after both arrests, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security told Fox News.
Border Patrol arrested him a third time near San Ysidro, California, in 2019. An immigration judge ordered his release pending removal proceedings, and ICE released him in January 2020, DHS said. The outcome of those proceedings remains unclear.
In a separate case in September, a North Texas federal judge sentenced a twice-deported man to 74 months in prison for illegal reentry, The Dallas Express reported.
