The Venezuelan national who was shot by a U.S. Border Patrol agent during a confrontation outside a Southeast Portland medical building in January was sentenced Wednesday to time served – eight and a half months in custody – for ramming his pickup truck into an unoccupied car rented by federal agents.
Luis Niño-Moncada will be deported to Venezuela.
It is an anticlimactic outcome for prosecutors in a case that, in the days after the shooting, prompted then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to pledge “the full force” of the Justice Department in Niño-Moncada’s prosecution.
The quick resolution appeared to stem from complications with the prosecution’s case, as defense attorneys vigorously disputed the government’s initial claim that a Border Patrol agent had been struck by Niño-Moncada’s pickup truck and cited Portland police body-camera footage that caught another federal agent tampering with evidence at the scene.
The shooting occurred after Border Patrol agents followed Niño-Moncada’s red Toyota pickup into the parking lot of Adventist Health Medical Office 3 building at 10201 S.E. Main St. and blocked it in. Agents were initially targeting the front-seat passenger, Yorlenys Zambrano-Contreras, Niño-Moncada’s girlfriend.
Niño-Moncada at first thought the masked men who surrounded the truck were “gangsters.” When he realized they were federal agents, he said he panicked and feared being “disappeared,” knowing he could be detained and deported by immigration enforcement officers, according to his lawyers.
Niño-Moncada admitted to putting his truck in reverse and twice ramming the unoccupied rental car stopped behind him before driving out of the lot. He was shot in the upper left arm and grazed in the chest; Zambrano-Contreras was shot in the chest. The wounded driver drove about three miles to an apartment complex on Northeast 146th Avenue, where he called 911.
At the sentencing hearing Wednesday in Portland, Niño-Moncada, 33, his voice shaking with emotion, told U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut that he loved the United States and Americans “in comparison with my experiences in Venezuela.”
“When the incident happened with the agents, I thought I was going to be killed,” he said through a Spanish interpreter. “I was more frightened than I had ever been before.”
He said he was scared that his passenger, his girlfriend Yorlenys Zambrano-Contreras, who was shot in the chest, was going to die. He also said that recovering from his wounds in jail was “terrifying.”
“While I am struggling to process my feelings about being shot, I am also grateful for all the support I have received. Despite my experiences, I still love this country and the people in it,” he said.
Immergut accepted the negotiated sentence.
The Jan. 8 shooting happened a day after the highly publicized fatal shooting in Minneapolis of U.S. citizen Renee Nicole Good by a federal immigration-enforcement officer and amid reports of other aggressive actions by immigration officers that included breaking car windows during vehicle stops and firing at other people in cars.
At the time of the shooting in Portland, U.S. Homeland Security officials said the officer had fired in self-defense and to protect others after Niño-Moncada had “weaponized” the Toyota pickup truck.
But outside experts hired by the defense team concluded that the federal agent who fired two shots was not in immediate harm’s way. The team said the unidentified agent, referred to in court documents as BP5, was likely “out to the side of the Toyota” at the time he fired two shots through the driver’s window.
The defense team’s forensic engineers reviewed video from the scene, considered gunshot trajectories, the path of bullet wounds to the truck’s occupants, the lack of any bullet damage in the truck and witness statements.
“The precise order of events would have been closely contested at trial,” Assistant Federal Public Defenders Michael Benson and Peyton Lee wrote to the judge. “Mr. Niño-Moncada’s position is that the physical evidence and video is most consistent with BP5 shooting Mr. Niño-Moncada as BP5 moved towards the truck and while BP5 was not in a position to be hit by the truck.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Edmonds countered that, before the agent shot Niño-Moncada, the pickup truck had latched on to the front end of the unoccupied government rental car, a Hyundai Sonata, causing the truck “to fishtail violently.” The pickup tore off the bumper of the Sonata, and Niño-Moncada, driving the truck, then fled out of the parking lot.
“Defendant’s reckless conduct initiated and brought about the facts that ensued. He has admitted to causing intentional damage to government property and reckless conduct placing another at risk of serious bodily injury,” Edmonds wrote to the judge.
Niño-Moncada came to the U.S. in October 2022, entering at the Paso Del Norte Bridge in El Paso, Texas, where he was taken into custody by federal immigration authorities. Political violence and economic catastrophe had prompted him to abandon college in Venezuela and leave the country, according to Benson and Lee.
While attending protests against the Nicolas Maduro regime, Niño-Moncada was abducted by government-affiliated forces and tortured through waterboarding and hanging, his lawyers told the court in a sentencing memo.
After crossing into the U.S. and being detained, he was released and given a date to appear in immigration court. He gained temporary status and permission to work, and later moved to Seattle, before relocating to Portland last year, his lawyers said. When he failed to appear before an immigration judge on Nov. 21, 2024 in Seattle, a removal order was entered.
“Regardless of the facts surrounding the shooting itself, Mr. Niño-Moncada had no justification for backing his truck into the empty Hyundai at least three times, totaling thevehicle,” his defense lawyers wrote to the judge. “He accepts responsibility and punishment for that conduct. Mr. Niño-Moncada’s decision was made in a moment of panic and does not reflect a pattern of combative or defiant behavior.”
Niño-Moncada also agreed to pay $24,413 in restitution for the total loss to the government’s rental car, according to the negotiated agreement. At sentencing, the attorneys involved in the case were unsure whether the money would be paid to Hertz Rental Car or the government.
Weeks after the shooting, co-defendant Zambrano-Contreras, 32, pleaded guilty to improper entry to the U.S. in 2023, a misdemeanor, and was sentenced to a year of probation. She was ordered to wear a location monitor for the yearlong probation and remains in Oregon.
The Portland Police Bureau has declined a public records request for the Portland police body-camera footage that caught the alleged tampering of evidence at the scene, citing an ongoing investigation by the Oregon Department of Justice.
Oregon Senior Assistant Attorney General John Casalino attended Wednesday’s sentencing hearing and told The Oregonian/OregonLive that his department’s review of the Border Patrol encounter and a federal agent’s alleged tampering with evidence is still ongoing.
A U.S. Customs and Border Patrol representative, when asked about the evidence tampering allegation and the sentencing, sent the agency’s press release from Jan. 9 that alleged that the pair in the pickup truck “let loose on American streets by Joe Biden—weaponized their vehicle against Border Patrol in Portland,” and the agent fired shots to “defend himself and others.”
As part of his plea deal, Niño-Moncada’s agreed to not contest his deportation.
At the conclusion of the sentencing hearing, the prosecutor asked the court to dismiss the assault against a federal officer charge against Niño-Moncada.
Unlike past court appearances, Niño-Moncada appeared for his sentencing hearing in street clothes, a green sweater with white stripes and gray pants.
Niño-Moncada hugged his two defense lawyers, waved and was led away by two deputy U.S. Marshals.
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