|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Attorneys for a New Bedford foster family have filed new court documents, alleging that the deported father of an 8-year-old U.S. citizen has multiple aliases and criminal charges, including assault with a deadly weapon and cocaine trafficking.
The papers were filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court Massachusetts in an effort to convince the court that the biological father should not be given custody of the child and that the child should not be sent to Guatemala to live with him.
A lawyer for the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families said in a filing that the child, known only as S.R.C., could be sent to Guatemala as early as Feb. 5 in compliance with an Essex County Juvenile Court decision awarding custody to her father after the federal government deported him in 2024. Federal judge Angel Williams cleared the way for the handover in a decision Friday.
Lawyers for the state filed their response to the emergency motion for the stay hours before an attorney for John Cobbett-Walden and Catherine Cobbett-Walden, the New Bedford couple who were foster parents to S.R.C. for over three years, filed the new allegations and evidence.
“In light of recent developments pertinent to the pending emergency motion before this Court,” said Kirsten Wicker, the couple’s attorney, in the filing, “[the plaintiff] hereby submits the following notice of supplementary facts that were discovered yesterday (January 27, 2026) concerning the previously undiscussed criminal history of Intervenor Biological Father Esvin O. Gregorio Cabrera (“Intervenor”).”
Attorneys for Cabrera did not respond to an email requesting comment. Nonetheless, in a filing responding to the stay motion, attorneys Brian K. French and Luis Vargas-Rivera focus on procedural arguments and called the plaintiff’s arguments about the impacts of handing S.R.C. to Cabrera hypothetical.
“Their claimed ‘irreparable harm’ is speculative and contradicted by the state court’s reunification findings; the equities decisively favor S.R.C.’s reunification with her fit parent; and the public interest weighs against federal interference in ongoing juvenile proceedings and in favor of family integrity and finality.”
Representatives for the DCF and Massachusetts Juvenile Court did not respond to emails requesting comment.
A spokesperson for the Office of the Child Advocate said that the office “has thoroughly reviewed this case and, based on the information available to us at this time, we do not have any concerns with the Juvenile Court’s decision to place this child in her father’s care.”
New allegations
In the new allegations, Zwicker alleged that Cabrera used multiple aliases and had multiple civil and criminal charges in Boston area jurisdictions including Waltham as well as the Dorchester District Court and Boston Municipal Court.
“Although Intervenor’s criminal history and outstanding warrants are highly material to the issues considered by the Juvenile Court in the underlying care and custody proceeding,” Zwicker said in the filing, “the Juvenile Court did not consider that Intervenor has an extensive criminal history in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
The attorney alleged that Cabrera used the aliases of: Nemorio M. Noriega, Nemorio M. Noriega-Tellez, Esvin Otoniel Gregorio-Cabrera, and Esvin Gregorio Cabrera at various times while in the U.S. The filing claimed that mugshots of the individuals charged included in the filings were of the same man. Charge sheets for Noriega-Tellez and Cabrera listed the same birth date though the different birth locations: Noriega-Tellez claimed to be born in Cancun, the resort town in Mexico’s Quintana Roo state, while Cabrera’s claimed Allepa, Guatemala. An internet search by The Light did not find any place with that name in the Central American nation.
According to the filings, Cabrera’s interactions listed under any of his aliases with Massachusetts courts have included:
- Arraigned in Dorchester District Court on charges of assault and battery, disorderly conduct, trespassing, and wanton malicious destruction of property on July 19, 2013. Charges dismissed due to failure to prosecute on Dec. 3, 2013.
- Arraigned in Boston Municipal Court on May 3, 2016, on one count of unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle and one count of possession of a Class B substance. A judge revoked his bail in the case on March 21, 2017, due to a new arrest. The judge closed the case on May 2, 2017, at the Commonwealth’s request.
- Arraigned in Boston Municipal Court on Dec 14, 2016, on charges related to missing an April arraignment. Also charged with one count of unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle and one count of a brakes violation. Case closed by the Commonwealth on May 2, 2017.
- Arraigned in Dorchester District Court on March 21, 2017, on charges of one count of trafficking 18 grams or more of cocaine, one count of unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, one count of failure to stop for police, and one count of assault with a dangerous weapon. The case is still open with a default warrant issued on March 25, 2025.
- Arraigned in Dorchester District Court on March 19, 2018, on one count of possession and distribution of Class B drugs, one count of unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, and one count of furnishing a false name at arrest.
Authorities deported Cabrera twice, in 2018 and 2024.
Case history
The case went to U.S. District Court Massachusetts in September when the Cobbett-Waldens filed a petition to stay DCF plans to fly S.R.C. to Cabrera in Guatemala on Sept. 25, 2025; the result of a decision by an Essex County Juvenile Court Judge that month.
According to the foster parents’ initial complaint, S.R.C. was born in Massachusetts on May 3, 2017, to Esvin O. Gregorio Cabrera, then 29, and her mother, then 15. The age of consent in Massachusetts is 16, but there was no prosecution based on any allegation of statutory rape against Cabrera, according to the complaint.
The complaint asserts that federal authorities deported Cabrera to Guatemala due to the expiration of his work permit shortly before his daughter’s birth. The complaint said S.R.C.’s biological mother never attempted to contact the child after DCF removed her from her care on May 2, 2021. Authorities terminated her parental rights in June 2024.
The child exhibited behavioral issues with two different foster families before DCF placed her with the Cobbett-Waldens in February 2022, according to the complaint. That same month, DCF allowed Cabrera, who had returned to the U.S. without authorization the previous year, to have supervised visits with S.R.C. The complaint said her behavior “repeatedly regressed” after visits with her biological father.
Between June 2024 and October 2024, Cabrera visited the child eight times without supervision. The complaint said that the child had a violent tantrum when informed of the first unsupervised visits, refusing to go to school, becoming violent, refusing to sleep, and clinging to her foster parents for prolonged periods of time. The complaint also alleged that she expressly wanted to stay with the Cobbett-Waldens.
The visits continued until ICE took Cabrera into custody in October 2024. The federal government deported him to Guatemala the following month.
After his deportation, Cabrera continued to speak with S.R.C. through Zoom calls, “which have all gone extremely poorly,” according to the complaint. Part of the issues stemmed from the language barrier, as S.R.C. only speaks English and Cabrera only Spanish, and the child refused to participate on multiple occasions.
Zwicker said the Cobbett-Waldens will contest the case until the end and have created an online fundraiser that has reached $36,316 of its $50,000 fundraising goal to cover legal costs as of Jan. 29.
Said Zwicker, “We were shocked to uncover the criminal history of Mr. Cabrera, both under his given name and numerous alias, which raises serious concerns surrounding the custody proceedings for this child as to whether these charges were merely disregarded or overlooked.”
Contact Kevin G. Andrade at kandrade@newbedfordlight.org.
