A Honduras man arrested near Douglas on suspicion of drugged driving is now charged with illegal reentry for coming back into America after being deported 12 years ago.
Luis Edgardo Gomez-Barahona faces one count of illegal reentry, punishable by up to 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.
A Wyoming Highway Patrol agent arrested Gomez-Barahona on Nov. 21 in Converse County on suspicion of drugged driving, marijuana possession, failure to provide insurance and driving without a license.
Converse County Sheriff’s Deputies booked Gomez-Barahona in their jail, then they called federal immigration officials, according to an evidentiary affidavit made public Friday in the U.S. District Court for Wyoming.
Aron Trzyna, deportation officer for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), obtained the inmate’s fingerprints the next day and plugged them into ICE’s biometric identification system.
The prints matched an illegal immigrant’s file with Gomez-Barahona’s name on it, the affidavit says.
Trzyna also found an Aug. 3, 2011, judge’s order deporting Gomez-Barahona to Honduras from Louisiana. That order came about five months after Gomez-Barahona was convicted in Missouri for being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm. He was sentenced to 10 months of incarceration on that charge but apparently was deported before his sentence was complete, the affidavit indicates.
The agent also found an April 17, 2022, arrest in Gomez-Barahona’s record for alleged drug possession in Kansas City, Kansas. The record didn’t reveal how that charge ended.
Trzyna called Gomez-Barahona at jail Nov. 27.
Gomez-Barahona told the agent that he’s been in the United States since May 2020 this time around. He allegedly admitted to being deported in 2011.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
