Rachel Mitchell (Maricopa County DA’s Office), Alvin Bragg (Manhattan DA’s Office), and Raad Almansori (Maricopa County DA’s Office)
One of Arizona’s top prosecutors has broken with typical legal protocol this week by refusing to extradite a 26-year-old man who is accused of beating a 38-year-old mother to death inside a New York City hotel room earlier this month.
Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, a staunch Republican who rose to office after winning a 2022 special election, on Wednesday publicly refused to send Raad Almansori back to New York to face murder charges in the brutal slaying of 38-year-old Denisse Oleas-Arancibia.
Mitchell was previously brought on by Republicans in the U.S. Senate to assist in the confirmation of Donald Trump-nominated Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and was a leader in the questioning of Christine Blasey Ford, who had credibly accused the soon-to-be justice of sexual assault decades before his confirmation.
Mitchell is claiming that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg — a prominent Democrat — and the prosecutors in his office were too lenient on accused murderers to be trusted with detaining Almansori.
“Having observed the treatment of violent criminals in the New York area by the Manhattan D.A. there, Alvin Bragg,” Mitchell said during a Wednesday afternoon news conference. “I think it’s safer to keep him here and keep him in custody so that he cannot be out doing this to individuals either in our state, county or anywhere in the United States.”
Bragg has been a target for Republicans who consistently claim that he has gone after Trump over alleged unlawful hush payments to adult actress Stormy Daniels for political gain.
Almansori is accused of stabbing and bludgeoning Oleas-Arancibia to death in New York’s Soho Hotel on Feb. 8 before hopping on a flight to Arizona. Once there, he allegedly stabbed two different women — a McDonald’s employee in the bathroom and a female driver stabbed during a carjacking.
The Manhattan DA’s Office did not take the Arizona prosecutor’s controversial statements lightly, responding quickly via spokesperson Emily Tuttle, who deftly compared New York City’s murder rate to the murder rates in Phoenix, Arizona, which falls within Mitchell’s jurisdiction.
“It is deeply disturbing that DA Mitchell is playing political games in a murder investigation,” the statement said. “In Manhattan, we are serious about New Yorkers’ safety, which is why murders are down 24%, and shootings are down 38% since D.A. Bragg took Office. New York’s murder rate is less than half that of Phoenix, Arizona, because of 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 a New Yorker’s death.”
The Manhattan DA’s Office followed up with a post to X with statistics from AmericanViolence.org, which state that Phoenix has a murder rate of 11.6 per 100,000 residents while Manhattan’s is 5 per 100,000 residents.
Bragg’s office has been the target of criticism from Republican officials who claim that violent criminals in the city are often released from detention without being required to post bond and then not prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
