Deported Youth Team Manager Accused Of Child Rape, Returns

ROSLINDALE, MA — Five years after immigration authorities deported a man accused of child rape during a pending Suffolk County Prosecution, the District Attorney announced that the accused was brought from the Dominican Republic to Boston to face allegations.

“I’m grateful to the prosecutors, police, and federal partners who worked to help us hold an alleged child predator accountable,” District Attorney Rollins said. “This lengthy process comes to fruition today, as the defendant returns to Suffolk Superior Court five years after he was removed from the reach of our criminal justice system.”

Jose "Brujo" Ortega, 48, formerly of Roslindale, appeared in Suffolk Superior Court Monday. Ortega is charged with three counts of rape of a child under 16, two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 and one count each of open and gross lewdness and providing obscene material to a minor.

At the request of Assistant District Attorney Laura Montgomery of District Attorney Rollins’ Child Protection Unit, Clerk Magistrate Edward Curley set the Ortega's bail at $100,000.

Ortega was the manager of the Boston Broncos youth baseball league when he was accused. The prosecutor said Ortega groomed the child from 2003, when the young person was as young as 12 or 13, until 2010, for abuse and assaulted him on multiple occasions. Ortega kept the boy quiet by refusing to allow the boy to play in games if he did not give in to the Ortega's sexual advances, according to prosecutors.

Ortega was previously convicted of child enticement in 2012 in connection with another member of the youth league. In 2014, he was indicted in this pending case and arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court. He remained held on high bail until May 29, 2014, when that bail was reduced to personal recognizance with the agreement that Ortega would appear in court for all scheduled court dates.

By his next hearing date on June 6, 2014, however, Ortega had been taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and removed from the country. As a result of Ortega's failure to appear in court, a default warrant issued authorizing his arrest.

Suffolk prosecutors worked with federal officials at the Department of Justice Office of International Affairs on the intensive process to effect Ortega's arrest by Dominican authorities.

In June, Ortega was taken into custody in the San Pedro de Macoris province of the Dominican Republic on a default warrant. His arrest triggered a sequence of events that brought the defendant before the top federal court of the Dominican Republic, and his extradition was ultimately approved by that nation’s president.

On Friday, FBI agents transported Ortega to Boston and delivered him to members of the Boston Police Department awaiting his arrival at Logan Airport.

“We want to hold serious offenders accountable regardless of their immigration status. This means keeping the accused here for their prosecution and incarceration, not allowing a defendant to evade the reach of our laws by being returned to his or her country of origin prior to trial and completion of any sentence,” Rollins said in a statement. “This is especially true in cases of child sexual assault. We owe that much to the survivors as well as the communities we serve. We sincerely want to thank our federal partners for their assistance with the extradition. We could not have done this without them.”