The Arizona prosecutor who refused to send an accused prostitute killer to New York said she is looking out for his victims’ families and can’t guarantee the suspect will stay locked up because of the Manhattan district attorney’s lax bail policies. , Alvin Bragg.
Maricopa County Prosecutor Rachel Mitchell ordered her staff not to extradite Raad Noan Almansoori, 26, to New York, where he is wanted for the alleged murder of sex worker Denisse Oleas-Arancibia, 38.
He was arrested in Arizona after police said he stabbed two women, one at a McDonalds and the other while stealing their car.
‘We have two very violent crimes here. “We have two women who were stabbed and he faces a long mandatory prison sentence here and even though there is a homicide in New York, we can guarantee that he will remain in custody,” Mitchell said in fox and friends.
“I’m putting the victims first and making sure he stays in custody,” she said. “I don’t want this individual to go out and be able to victimize more people.”
Maricopa County Prosecutor Rachel Mitchell told FOX & Friends that she is looking out for the victims’ families by not extraditing accused killer Raad Noan Almansoori, 26, to New York.
Bragg held a news conference Thursday alleging that Mitchell refused to extradite as a political tool.
Raad Almansoori, 26, was arrested by police in Arizona for another assault on another woman and is wanted in New York for the alleged murder of sex worker Denisse Oleas-Arancibia, 38.
He cited Bragg’s “treatment of violent criminals” as the reason for his decision not to extradite Almansoori.
“And again, this is not smearing the NYPD, but it was just a couple of weeks ago that some of the illegal immigrants who were in New York City who beat police officers were released,” he said. Mitchell.
‘They were turning off the camera as they were leaving the jail and guess where they ended up? Four of them ended up in Maricopa County and had to be detained here.
Almansoori is in custody on suspicion of killing Queens sex worker Oleas-Arancibia by strangling her and hitting her in the head at the Soho 54 hotel on February 8.
Surveillance footage of Almansoori captured after Oleas-Arancibia’s murder shows him wearing his suit along a well-lit Manhattan street.
Almansoori was out on bail at the time of the murder for attacking and sexually assaulting another escort in Florida in April 2023. After being arrested on that charge, he posted his own bail in September of last year.
While on bail, he allegedly killed Oleas-Arancibia before fleeing across the country.
“Having observed the treatment of violent criminals in the New York area by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, I believe it is safer to keep him here and keep him in custody so that he cannot be doing this to individuals in our state”. county or anywhere in the United States,” Mitchell said, according to NBC News.
‘This is not directed at the New York Police Department at all. “I know they did a hard job, they did a good job, but we will not accept extradition,” he added.
‘I have ordered my extradition lawyers not to accept that. Let’s keep it here.’
Bragg held a news conference Thursday alleging that Mitchell refused to extradite as a political tool.
‘Your reasoning? Not because that’s what the law dictates, not because that’s what advances justice, not out of concern for victims, not at the request of the NYPD, but rather, plain and simple, bombast and politics the old-fashioned way,” Bragg said.
Mitchell (pictured) told reporters that he ordered his staff not to cooperate with plans to send Almansoori back to New York.
Mitchell responded to Bragg’s statement about his decision to extradite by saying, “It’s great to see the Manhattan DA finally taking an interest in violent crime.”
Bragg refuted his claim that immigrants arrested in Arizona were involved in the attack on police in Times Square.
“I find it deeply disturbing that a member of my profession, a member of law enforcement, would decide to engage in political games in a murder case.”
He also refuted his claim that immigrants arrested in Arizona were involved in another high-profile attack on police in Times Square.
“This has been proven false for weeks, so repeating a baseless falsehood, now on national television, is out of the ordinary,” Bragg said.
‘The NYPD has said that. My office has said it publicly. Different names, different dates of birth, different fingerprints. Different people. My office has charged seven people in the despicable and heinous attack on two of New York’s finest.
Emily Tuttle, Bragg’s representative, said it is “deeply disturbing” that Mitchell is “playing political games in a murder investigation” and described her statement as “a slap in the face” to New York authorities.
“In Manhattan, we take the safety of New Yorkers seriously, which is why murders have decreased by 24 percent and shootings by 38 percent since Attorney Bragg took office,” said a statement issued by Tuttle.
‘New York’s homicide rate is less than half that of Phoenix, Arizona, thanks to the hard work of the NYPD and all of our law enforcement partners.
“It is a slap in the face to them and to the victim in our case to refuse to allow us to seek justice and full accountability for the death of a New Yorker.”
In a scathing response to Bragg’s office at X, Mitchell responded. ‘It’s great to see the Manhattan DA finally taking an interest in violent crime. My job is to focus on the victims whose protection I was chosen.’
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Almansoori had purchased a plane ticket from Florida to New York on January 26.
When staff discovered Denisse Oleas-Arancibia’s body on the morning of February 8, the 38-year-old woman was lying under a blanket and next to a broken iron, having been admitted the day before.
A surveillance image shows the suspect in Oleas-Arancibia’s gruesome murder wearing a suit in Manhattan.
Oleas-Arancibia’s death has been formally ruled a homicide (pictured: interior of the room where Oleas-Arancibia was found)
According to Kenny, he then uses the credit card three days later in the Big Apple and visits an escort in Upper Manhattan on February 6.
Oleas-Arancibia’s body was found the morning of February 8, and four days later, Almansoori reportedly flew back to Arizona from Newark.
Authorities in Arizona arrested him Sunday after he stabbed a woman at McDonald’s after dragging her into the women’s bathroom and holding her against her will.
Police say Almansoori was arrested shortly after he tried to flee in a stolen car and admitted while in custody to being stabbed earlier in Phoenix. In that incident, a woman was stabbed when a man tried to steal her car at knifepoint.
Almansoori was booked into the Maricopa County Jail on charges of attempted murder, aggravated assault and robbery.
He was also charged with robbery, assault, theft and criminal mischief in the separate Phoenix investigation. He is being held without bail.