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Dominican man who shot border patrol officer in NYC sentenced to 15 years in prison
By
Samantha Max
Published Oct 5, 2026
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By
Samantha Max
Published Oct 5, 2026
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A Dominican immigrant who shot and seriously injured an off-duty U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer during a botched robbery in Fort Washington Park in Manhattan last year was sentenced on Monday to 15 years in federal prison.
U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Preska said a substantial sentence was necessary to deter Miguel Francisco Mora Nuñez from committing additional crimes, as well as to deter others from coming to the country illegally and breaking the law. The 23-year-old from the Dominican Republic pleaded guilty earlier this year to illegally possessing ammunition as an unauthorized immigrant. He crossed the Arizona border in April 2023, according to prosecutors.
The July 19, 2025, shooting occurred amid heightened tension over immigration across the country, just months after President Donald Trump took office and dispatched hordes of federal immigration officers to Democratic-led cities.
It also inspired a monthslong effort to arrest dozens of alleged members of the Dominican American Trinitarios gang, according to then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. She said Mora Nuñez and his co-defendant were affiliated with the gang.
More than 30 Customs and Border Patrol officers filled nearly every seat in the gallery of the courtroom on Monday. Mora Nuñez apologized to the officer during a tearful statement to the judge.
“I wish I could go back in time and avoid everything that has happened,” he said in Spanish. “I also want to apologize to my family, which has suffered because of my actions.”
Prosecutors said Mora Nuñez shot CBP Officer Joshua Sinclair while attempting to rob him. Sinclair was sitting on the rocks in the park shortly before midnight, beneath the George Washington Bridge, and talking with a friend when Mora Nuñez approached, according to court papers. Prosecutors said he had stolen another woman’s cellphone moments earlier.
Mora Nuñez stood less than two feet away from Sinclair, pointed a gun toward the off-duty officer’s head, and pulled the trigger twice, hitting him in the face and arm, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. Sinclair fired back with his government-issued Glock, hitting Mora Nuñez in the lower body, prosecutors said.
Mora Nuñez hopped on the motorbike of his co-defendant, Christhian Aybar-Berroa, and fled to a nearby hospital. Sinclair, meanwhile, had blood rushing from his face and feared he would die, he testified at a pre-sentencing hearing. An NYPD officer rushed him to a hospital, where he remained for 12 days and underwent several surgeries.
Sinclair did not speak during the sentencing hearing, but in a letter he asked the judge for the maximum possible punishment. The officer said he had “defied the statistics working against Black male foster children in America,” survived living in high-crime neighborhoods and graduated from college with honors, only for the failure of multiple systems to lead to his shooting.
In his letter, Sinclair cited officials’ failure to rein in gun violence, law enforcement’s failure to apprehend Mora Nuñez for another crime he allegedly committed in Massachusetts, and the immigration system’s failure to prevent Mora Nuñez and Aybar-Berroa from entering the country.
Because of those failures, Sinclair said, he had depleted his sick time, strained many of his relationships, struggled to navigate the complicated worker’s compensation and healthcare systems, and endured lasting trauma.
“I ask you, with the power that you hold in your hands, to please not fail me or the other hard-working citizens who have done everything they can to not fail,” Sinclair said in his letter to Preska. “Although their maximum sentences don’t seem to match up to the level of destruction they have committed or had hoped to commit, anything less would feel like yet another missed opportunity to not fail.”
Mora Nuñez’s attorney, Jarrod Schaeffer, asked for a shorter sentence of 6-and-a-half to 8 years in prison. He noted his client’s young age and extensive history of trauma, as well as his 1-year-old daughter, whose childhood he hopes not to completely miss.
In a pre-sentencing memo, Schaeffer said that as a child and teen, Mora Nuñez was physically abused, was exposed to rampant crime and witnessed two homicides. He dropped out of school at age 12 and also started abusing alcohol and drugs at a young age, according to the defense attorney.
In addition to a prison sentence, Preska ordered that Mora Nuñez receive mental health and substance abuse treatment. She sentenced Aybar-Berroa to 12-and-a-half years for serving as an accomplice.
Tagged
border patrol
manhattan
public safety
Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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