Immigrant arrested in Raleigh after years on run from WA statutory rape charges
Christhian Jonathan Buezo-Baires is charged with three counts for the child rape of two minor victims, one of whom became pregnant
Last week, Raleigh Police arrested a fugitive immigrant who had been evading law enforcement for over three years since authorities in King County, WA began investigating and eventually charged him with multiple counts of statutory child rape.
Christhian Jonathan Buezo-Baires is accused of engaging in sexual relations with two girls 5-7 years his junior beginning when they were 13- and 14-years-old, the former of whom he is alleged to have eventually impregnated and abandoned. Buezo-Baires is also the subject of a detainer by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
On the Lam
According to the charging document, Buezo-Baires "vanished" after police interviewed his alleged victims. He "unexpectedly stopped going to his work, changed his phone number and has not been seen by various family and friends," leading authorities to conclude that he was "actively trying to evade involvement with law enforcement."
Buezo-Baires successfully evaded capture until July 13, when Raleigh Police arrested him near his residence in North Raleigh for extradition to Washington on child rape charges. (It's not clear how long Buezo-Baires has been in North Carolina; his residence is listed on the arrest record as being in the North Hills at Town Center apartment complex.)
Buezo-Baires is currently held at the Wake County Detention Center on a $2 million bond. The facility has received an ICE detainer and administrative warrant, indicating that he is not a U.S. citizen.
Although it is often an illegal immigrant who is named as the subject of such detainers, they may also be issued for foreign nationals who have/had legal status in the country. (ICE did not respond to a request for clarification as to Buezo-Baires' country of origin and/or immigration status.)
The detective with the King County Sheriff's Office who investigated the case was provided a photocopy of a Social Security card and US Permanent Resident ID for Buezo-Baires by a former employer, but noted that the name and date of birth did not match his school records, and that "a query of this specific name and birthdate combination yielded no concrete record."
Criminal Information
Buezo-Baires was charged via criminal information in King County Superior Court (Case #23-1-07722-5) on December 29, 2023 with one count of Rape of a Child in the Second Degree (RCW 9A.44.076) and two counts of Rape of a Child in the Third Degree (RCW 9A.44.079).
Prosecutors allege that Buezo-Baires had sexual relationships with two girls, beginning at ages 13 and 14, over a two year period between August 2020 and May 2022, beginning when he was either 18 or 20 (the investigation found inconsistent records of his birth date). The victims will be referred to here pseudonymously as Juana and Maria (Spanish interpreters were used to interview both the victims and family members).
The KCSO began its investigation on April 13, 2022 when deputies were called to Juana's home by her mother, who reported that her 14-year-old daughter had "consensual sex" with her boyfriend, Buezo-Baires, whom the mother believed to be 20 years old at the time.
In an interview with a KCSO detective, Juana said she first met Buezo-Baires outside her school, Highline High School in Burien, WA. School officials reported that Buezo-Baires had attended the same school but effectively dropped out by not attending classes, though he "still periodically appeared on campus" until he was "un-enrolled" in December 2021.
Juana’s mother also informed the detective about Maria, one of her daughter’s 14-year-old classmates, whom she had been told that Buezo-Baires was also possibly victimizing.
When detectives interviewed Maria days later, she said she met Buezo-Baires while attending Glacier Middle School in Buckley, WA, and began a "romantic relationship" with him in January 2021, at age 13, but denied any sexual activity.
The authorities’ attempts to locate or contact Buezo-Baires over the next seven months were unsuccessful.
However, in November, a counselor at Olympia High School in Olympia, WA reached out to the local police about Maria, who was 7 months pregnant with a child she said was fathered by Buezo-Baires.
In subsequent interviews, Maria revealed that she had met Buezo-Baires through a cousin when she was twelve, at the end of seventh grade, and began "dating" him the next year, when their sexual relationship started.
Maria also disclosed that, upon entering high school, Buezo-Baires and his friends began threatening to "injure" or "inflict pain" on her and her family if she revealed their relationship. Even after wanting to end the relationship, she was too afraid to do so due to these threats.
After discovering her pregnancy, Maria said Buezo-Baires denied paternity and continued threatening her not to disclose their relationship, telling her that "even if [she] went to Guatemala, he would find [her] because he had friends over there."
Maria further reported that Buezo-Baires changed his phone number around the time she last saw him, coinciding with her initial police interview. Their last sexual encounter occurred a week before that interview, during which he took her phone to prevent her from calling for help and threatened to harm her and her mother if she did not continue.
Are Hispanics overrepresented in statutory sex offenses?
Although Buezo-Baires' alleged crimes occurred in Washington in 2020-2022, they echo a series of local prosecutions earlier this year, in which a total of eight defendants were charged with kidnapping, trafficking, and/or statutory rape in five incidents involving 14- and 15-year-old girls:
February: Two men charged with taking 15-year-old girl from Harnett County to Dare County
February: Two illegal aliens charged over 15-year-old girl found in Asheboro after being missing from Siler City for a week
April: Illegal alien charged with taking 14-year-old from Lee County middle school
April: Previously-convicted sex offender charged with taking under-16-year-old girl reported missing from Siler City
May: Two illegal aliens charged after being found in Florida with 14- and 15-year-old sisters reported missing from Clayton
Six of the eight defendants in these cases are Hispanic, while five of these Hispanics are illegal aliens.
To determine whether Hispanics are overrepresented in statutory sex offense cases involving adult men and young teenage girls, the Triangle Trumpet estimated the ethnicity of perpetrators in Wake County using two methods. The results indicate that the Hispanic share of statutory sex prosecutions is nearly 4x their share of the population:
The U.S. Census Bureau counts race and ethnicity separately; for the above visualization, "white" refers to non-Hispanic white, "black" to non-Hispanic black etc.
Methodology
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