Manhattan DA slams AZ prosecutor for refusing to extradite NYC murder suspect

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg passionately denounced an Arizona prosecutor on Thursday for refusing to extradite a man accused of killing a Queens woman earlier this month, and pleaded the Maricopa County official to handle the spat through a rational, professional “phone call.”

“It is deeply disturbing to me that a member of law enforcement would choose to play political games in a murder case,” Bragg said at a news conference on Thursday. “That should have no place in our profession.”

The unusual interstate spat comes as New York City has taken center stage in a fractious national debate over migrants and federal border policy. Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, a Republican, has refused to extradite a man suspected of killing a woman in a SoHo hotel after he was arrested in Arizona in relation to the case on Feb. 18.

Mitchell said she didn’t trust Bragg to keep the suspect behind bars.

On Tuesday, NYPD officials accused Raad Almansoori, 26, of killing Denisse Oleas-Arancibia, 38 and originally from Ecuador, who was found dead on the floor of a room at the SoHo 54 Hotel with a clothes iron near her body earlier this month.

Police later alleged that Almansoori used the broken iron to kill Oleas-Arancibia by slamming it into her head and leaving bits of plastic embedded in her skull, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny.

Almansoori flew from Newark Airport to Arizona on Feb. 12 and was eventually arrested in Scottsdale 10 days later after stabbing two other women, NYPD officials said.

Gothamist could not reach Almansoori’s family. Information for his attorney was not immediately available.

Almansoori’s extradition to New York City would have been routine — it’s not uncommon for suspects arrested in other states to be transported back to face charges for serious crimes, according to former prosecutors. And Almansoori faces a much more serious charge in New York than he does in Arizona.

Bragg argued that Mitchell was using the murder case to gain political favoritism and take unfounded jabs at Bragg in light of the city’s migrant crisis.

Bragg is a favorite target of right-wing politicians and pundits who accuse him of being too progressive. Critics have also spoken out against Bragg for spearheading the high-profile case against former President Donald Trump regarding alleged hush money payments made during his 2016 presidential campaign.

“This is highly unusual,” said Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a former Manhattan chief assistant district attorney. Agnifilo explained that prosecutors from two different states typically agree on a process behind closed doors when they’re prosecuting the same person, adding that Mitchell’s motives were “outrageous.”

“It shows not only ignorance, but it’s injecting politics into justice — and that should never be done,” Agnifilo said.

The NYPD and the offices of Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams declined to comment on the spat.

Mitchell took another pass at Bragg on Fox News on Thursday morning for releasing the “illegal immigrants” who attacked NYPD officers in Times Square earlier this month, and claimed that four of the migrants involved in the incident were later arrested in Maricopa County.

None of the five men indicted in New York City last week had traveled to Arizona, according to their attorneys. NYPD officials said on Thursday that they could not confirm whether the four migrants who were arrested in Arizona were involved in the attack on officers in New York.

Bragg denounced those claims.

“To repeat a baseless falsehood on national TV is beyond the pale,” Bragg said on Thursday.

Bragg fired back at Mitchell’s remarks that he was unequipped to prosecute violent criminals by adding that shootings in Manhattan had decreased 38% under his tenure. Manhattan’s homicide rate is nearly 2.5 times lower than that of Phoenix, according to data provided by Bragg’s office.

“I don’t know what’s in her head, but what’s in her head is not the data,” Bragg said of Mitchell on Thursday.

Agnifilio said Bragg could seek a “governor’s warrant” from Hochul’s office to file with Arizona’s governor, ensuring Almansoori would be extradited to New York after serving time in Maricopa County.

The SoHo hotel murder piles onto Almansoori’s extensive criminal history in Arizona, Texas and Florida, where police said he kidnapped and sexually assaulted a woman.

Nine days after Oleas-Arancibia’s body was found in Lower Manhattan, Almansoori allegedly stabbed a woman during a carjacking at knifepoint in Phoenix, NYPD officials said. He escaped.

The next day, police said he dragged a female employee at a McDonald’s in Surprise, Arizona, into the women’s bathroom and stabbed her “several times.” He escaped again, but was caught 40 miles away while driving a stolen car in Scottsdale.

Almansoori told Arizona police that he was wanted for murder in New York and to “Google SoHo 54 Hotel,” police said.

As the political arguments around Almansoori’s extradition continued to reverberate on Thursday, all was quiet at Oleas-Arancibia’s former addresses in Jackson Heights.

No one answered the door at her most recent address, and a neighbor there said she thought any remaining family members had already moved out in the weeks since the incident.