Minnesota Dad of the Month

Julian Onesimo Narvaez-Ramirez, a late entrant in a crowded and competitive field, came out of nowhere to sweep the Minnesota Dad of the Month honors.

Mr. Narvaez, age 53, was indicted on July 29 by a federal grand jury on two counts: the usual illegal (felony) re-entry of a previously deported alien and failure to register as a sex offender.

The indictment was unsealed today. Mr. Narvaez is being held in the federal lockup at the Sherburne County jail.

The sex offender element dates back to a 2014 state case where Narvaez was accused of sexually abusing his own daughter from the third grade through the fifth grade. At the time, the family appears to have been living in Maple Plain.

In an unusual twist, the case went to trial where a jury declined to convict Narvaez of 1st-degree criminal sexual conduct but convicted him on two counts of 2nd degree criminal sexual conduct, still a felony.

In a second unusual twist, Narvaez received an upward departure on his sentence, getting a prison sentence of more than 11 years (with credit for almost a year of time served).

He was supposed to have paid a $10,500 fine, which was waived.

Narvaez appealed his sentence to the state Court of Appeals, but lost. The Appeals Court’s March 26, 2018, opinion (p. 2) contains all the details of the crimes for which he was convicted. Recall that the crimes involved forced sexual contact and that the victim was his own elementary-school-aged daughter.

Narvaez was deported in February 2022 but returned to Minnesota at some point after that. He enjoyed the full benefit of due process for his felony convictions, including a hearing and judgment by the state Court of Appeals.

Now, in his federal case, he is represented by a court-appointed attorney with a court-paid Spanish-language interpreter for every court appearance.

The feds most recently located Mr. Narvaez in the McLeod County jail. It turns out that he now lives in Hutchinson. In May, Hutchinson police received a tip that an unregistered sex offender had been living in their community for the past six months.

A visit to Mr. Narvaez has him producing a fake ID under the name “Juan Navaete.” He was arrested on May 23. He is charged in McLeod County with failure to register as a sex offender, a felony count. His jury trial is scheduled to begin on August 12. I’d put him down as a “maybe” for that court date.

He is scheduled to appear next in federal court on Wednesday, August 6 for a detention hearing. Will he be held over? Sent back to McLeod? Turned over to ICE?

Stay tuned!