By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
An illegal immigrant with a record of arrests for violent offenses in Princeton finds himself in more legal hot water, this time for allegedly threatening to kill a former roommate last month.
Arnoldo Agreda-Rodgriguez was at his apartment on Green Street May 21 when he allegedly held a roughly 8-inch-kitchen knife toward the man, according to law enforcement.
“Rodriguez arrived home highly intoxicated and began to argue with the male victim,” said Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office spokeswoman Casey A. DeBlasio on Friday. “The argument continued into the kitchen where Rodriguez removed a knife from a kitchen drawer and stated, ‘Do you want to die tonight?’ ”
Princeton Police this week would not elaborate about the domestic violence incident in which the alleged victim was unharmed.
Police spokesman Lt. Jon Bucchere said Friday that Mr. Agreda-Rodriguez was arrested at the residence that same day, charged with terroristic threats and weapons offenses and taken to the Mercer County Corrections Center on $20,000 bail. He subsequently posted bail on June 16.
“This case is pending and in the complaint stage,” Ms. DeBlasio said.
This was Mr. Agreda-Rodriguez’s fourth arrest, including one in December 2012, in the former Borough, in which he allegedly had a 13-inch-knife and threatened to kill someone. He was admitted to the pretrial intervention program and had the matter dismissed, court records showed.
But he made bigger headlines earlier this year in a sensational case that raised concern in Princeton, only for the alleged victim to change her story.
Princeton Police arrested and charged Mr. Agreda-Rodriguez with assaulting and making terroristic threats against an unidentified 48-year-old Princeton woman Jan.22 on Green Street — in what first was reported as an abduction.
She had claimed she had been hit from behind around 9:45 p.m. as she walked north on Witherspoon Street and taken to a vacant house on Green Street, across the street from where Mr. Agreda-Rodriguez lives, Princeton Police said at the time. The woman was able to jump from a window and flee.
But she changed her story about being abducted, with Mr. Agreda-Rodriguez later revealed to be the married woman’s boyfriend. During Mr. Agreda-Rodriguez’s bail hearing after his arrest, the Prosecutor’s Office said the two of them had been seeing each other for a year.
At some point in the encounter on Jan. 22, she wanted to stop having sex because of abdominal pain, while he wanted to continue, Mr. Agreda-Rodriguez’s lawyer said earlier this year after he had a court appearance. He allegedly got upset, grabbed her by the neck, hit her on the head and threatened her, authorities claimed.
But his legal problems from that case are behind him.
Court records showed that on June 7, the charges were dropped. Ms. DeBlasio said the January case “was dismissed because there was insufficient evidence to proceed with the prosecution.”
Federal immigration authorities, however, are looking for Mr. Agreda-Rodriguez. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in February that it would put a detainer, or a request, for law enforcement to hold the Guatemala native. Yet he was released from the county jail twice, once in February and again last week.
“We are aware of the circumstances surrounding the individual, and we are working the process,” said ICE spokesman Alvin Phillips on Friday.
The Obama administration has said it would prioritize deporting illegal immigrants who are criminals. Princeton Police only notify immigration authorities if an undocumented immigrant has been arrested for an indictable offense or for a drunken driving case, per a guideline by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, Lt. Bucchere said.
Princeton is a sanctuary city that seeks to be inviting to illegal immigrants, even having sponsored at St. Paul’s Catholic Church a work session for them earlier this year on what to say to ICE authorities if they ever get stopped.
Mr. Agreda-Rodriguez has lived in the United States for 15 years. Lt. Bucchere said he is employed as a kitchen worker at the Ivy Club, one of the Princeton University student eating clubs on Prospect Avenue.
But club manager Betty Rascher said Friday that he was let go in either April or May.
“He’s no longer working here,” she said without elaborating on the reason behind that decision.
He has two different birth dates, according to court records, that make him either 43 or 42 years old.
