A former Island resident sentenced for rape at the Edgartown Courthouse in April was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) officers on Oct. 30 after he was released from state prison by the Massachusetts Department of Corrections.
ICE announced on Nov. 1 that Jair Fernandes De Oliveira Jr., 27, was arrested and listed his charges on the Island in a social media post.
“Thanks to ERO [Enforcement and Removal Operations] Boston, another dangerous criminal alien will be held accountable for their vile and despicable crimes,” the agency said on X.
De Oliveira pleaded guilty in April in Dukes County Superior Court during the final trial conference for his charges including rape of a child, kidnapping, indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, and intimidation of a witness, juror, or police or court official. The incident occurred in October 2024, when De Oliveira was living in Oak Bluffs.
At the April hearing, De Oliveira was sentenced to two years and one day and served his time at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, a maximum-security facility in Lancaster. He had 454 days credited for when he was held at the Dukes County House of Corrections during his trial, which meant he had roughly nine months left to serve in state prison.
De Oliveira was arrested by Oak Bluffs Police in January 2025, and in December 2025, Dukes County Superior Court Judge Maureen Hogan said at a hearing De Oliveira was an undocumented individual living in the U.S. She set a $20,000 cash bail, citing an active ICE detainer and deeming him a high flight risk. De Oliveira never posted the bail.
Local attorneys previously said the federal agency was expected to take De Oliveira into custody upon completion of his state prison sentence. Court conditions also required him to serve three years of probation, register as a sex offender, and stay at least 100 yards away from the victim with no direct contact. It remains unclear what the detainment by ICE means for De Oliveira’s probation conditions.
The Cape and Islands District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment.
De Oliveira’s co-defendant in the case, Ana Beatriz Dasilva Sousa, 26, was taken into ICE custody in April after pleading guilty. She was convicted for the same incident for intimidating a witness. Her other charges, including aggravated rape of a child, were dismissed.
ICE didn’t comment beyond the X post and didn’t respond to requests for information about the whereabouts of De Oliveira and Sousa, who are both Brazilian nationals, or De Oliveira’s probation conditions.
A representative of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections wasn’t immediately available for comment.
