Stabber’s double con: illegal tells federal judge he just crossed border BUT told San Francisco judge weeks earlier he’d lived in city for 13 years
An illegal alien arrested for attempted murder after joining in a knife attack on a Mission district street in January, was given a one month sentence for an immigration offense today in federal court – weeks after apparently being let off with a few days’ jail by San Francisco authorities.
Mexican Mariel Isidro Cauich Ojeda, 45, was part of a group who attacked a man at the 16th Street BART plaza on January 10. Video of the shocking violence posted to social media showed Cauich stabbing the victim multiple times with a knife while he was on the ground.
The remarkably light sentence came after he successfully pulled the wool over the eyes of a judge at the city’s federal courthouse this morning.
U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley was assured by Cauich’s federal public defender that he had only recently returned to the United States after his last deportation in 2014.
He had spent a decade caring for his elderly parents in Mexico, it was said, and he only hopped the border in 2024 in response to a plea for help from his brother. This lessened his guilt, the court was told, and he ought to receive practically no punishment at all as a result.
But a month earlier Cauich’s state public defender told a judge at San Francisco’s Hall of Justice that he had lived in the city for over 13 years, and had been a dedicated employee of a local painting firm for seven years, as he sought to highlight his client’s current community ties in an effort to get his bail conditions relaxed so he could return to work.
Cauich’s telling of two different stories on two different days to two different judges went unremarked on during today’s hearing – not least because it was dealt with as a ‘fast track’ case by federal authorities.
Incurious prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office – under new criminal chief Jeff Mitchell – agreed with Cauich that a one month time-served sentence was ample, that an independent probation report was not required, and that there was no need for a sentencing memorandum from the government.
There is no suggestion that any enforcement action has been taken against the employers identified in the court record that hired Cauich.
The ‘illegal reentry’ charge to which Cauich pleaded guilty has a maximum penalty of two years’ imprisonment.
The court was told that San Francisco District Attorney’s Office charged the case as ‘assault with a deadly weapon – knife’ and offered Cauich a time-served four-day jail sentence. This was, it was said, in recognition of a self-defense claim made by Cauich – who said he was assaulted before pursuing his opponent across four lanes of rush hour traffic then stabbing and beating him in a five-on-one attack.
The purported position of the D.A.’s office was not corroborated in court.
Cauich’s attorney stated that his right pinky finger was sliced off by his attacker at the start of the melee. But the SFPD incident report said the appendage was recovered from the ground on the BART Plaza, leaving open the clear possibility that Cauich or one of his accomplices cut his finger off during their stabbing and beating of their target.
Two other suspects in the January 10 attack – Jose Enrique Lopez Brito and Jose Alfredo Lopez Brito – provided Mexican ID cards to SFPD and spoke to officers in Spanish.
Cauich’s rap sheet includes convictions for theft, battery and immigration offenses.
This morning in courtroom 19 of San Francisco federal courthouse, Judge Corley accepted the plea agreement and the parties’ agreed-upon sentence of one month and a day in custody – the extra day allowing time for U.S. Marshals to take custody of Cauich, who is being held in San Francisco county jail, and hand him to immigration authorities.
“This will be your first conviction, as I understand it, in the United States and will certainly require…for you to be removed from the United States and make it difficult if not impossible for you ever to lawfully return,” she said.
“I am not going to come back here,” Cauich said through a Spanish language interpreter.
Please support our work by using this Paypal link
To be notified of new stories enter your email address here or follow us on X