Two medical staffers indicted for interfering with immigration agents

A federal grand jury indicted two San Bernardino surgery center staff members for allegedly assaulting and interfering with U.S. Immigration officers while they attempted to detain a Honduran landscaper suspected of being in the country illegally.

Authorities charged Jose de Jesus Ortega, 38, of Highland, and Danielle Nadine Davila, 33, of Corona, with one felony count of assaulting, resisting and impeding a federal officer.

If convicted, the defendants face a sentence of eight years in federal prison. The trial is scheduled for Oct. 6.

The indictment comes a month after a viral social media video caught the tense July standoff at the Ontario Advanced Surgery Center staff.

According to a previous AP report, workers attempted to prevent a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer from apprehending the unnamed man who had fled into the office.

“Get your hands off of him. You don’t even have a warrant,” one staff member is heard saying, shielding the man from an immigration agent, according to the AP. “Let him go. You need to get out.”

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the agents were conducting an immigration-related operation in Ontario. The officers followed a truck into a parking lot before the vehicle stopped and two of the three men who were inside fled.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said officers had partially detained the “illegal alien from Honduras” before he resisted and ran inside the medical office.

Officials said that Ortega and Davila impeded and interfered with the arrest.

Davila, officials said, wedged herself “in between the officer and the alien, pushing the officer, and shouting, ‘Let him go!’ and ‘Get out!’”

Authorities said Ortega grabbed the officer’s arm and then his vest.

Another ICE officer eventually arrived and helped detain the man.