Following the arrest of Marvin Morales Ortez on the charge of murder a day after he was released from custody by Fairfax County in December, the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund (LELDF) has requested that the Department of Justice (DOJ) investigate the Fairfax County Office of the Commonwealth Attorney (FCOCA) for civil rights violations.
LELDF President Jason Johnson submitted a letter to Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillion in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, in which he accused FCOCA, a government authority, of “a deliberate ‘pattern and practice’ of illegal discrimination on behalf of those based on their immigration status — offering preferential and/or lenient treatment to avoid collateral immigration consequences for the offender.” Johnson described the policies as “immoral and unlawful” and “systematic discrimination against U.S. citizens to the benefit of those illegally present.”
The letter is dated Dec. 23, 2025, less than a week after Morales Ortez was arrested and charged for allegedly killing his roommate. Since the alleged murder, Morales Ortez has also been charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia with possession of a firearm by an alien illegally present in the U.S. According to the filing by the Eastern District, Morales Ortez has been in the U.S. illegally since Sept. 16, 2016. He was also previously charged with first-degree murder in 2019. It was after those charges were dropped that Morales Ortez was released last month…