Milwaukee man gets 16½ years for framing immigrant

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A Milwaukee man who framed an undocumented immigrant of threatening to kill President Donald Trump in an effort to get him deported so he could not testify against him was sentenced to 16½ years in prison on Feb. 27.

Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Kyle Eldkerkin urged Demetric Scott to get a significant amount of prison time in the case that became subject matter in the national conversation on immigration enforcement.

“When somebody actively works against the interests of justice, actively works to try to get cases dismissed and people deported, something has to be done to send a clear message that that is not OK,” Elderkin said.

The case gained international attention after Scott, 52, forged threats against Trump and ICE agents in an effort to bolster his chances of not being convicted in his robbery case.

Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Kristy Yang agreed, and sentenced Scott to a total of 16½ years in prison, followed by 13 years of extended supervision.

Ramón Morales Reyes, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, was the victim in a 2023 criminal case in which Scott was accused of chasing down Morales Reyes, stealing his bicycle and stabbing him in the side.

Scott wrote the threatening letters in 2025, while in jail, and sent them to family members to mail to law enforcement and state and federal officials. ICE subsequently arrested Morales Reyes.

Milwaukee police met with Morales Reyes at the ICE facility, and almost immediately determined that he did not write the letters. Morales Reyes could not read or write in English and had very different handwriting.

But days later, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem issued a news release praising ICE’s arrest of Morales Reyes. It quickly sparked outrage among local advocacy groups and drew international attention. As of February 2026, the news release, which includes Morales Reyes’ picture, remains on the DHS website without changes except for a small disclaimer at the bottom that includes the words, “this criminal illegal alien is no longer under investigation for threats against the President.”

Scott confessed to police and admitted at trial that he wrote the letters in an effort to get Morales Reyes deported in hopes that then Scott’s case would get dismissed.

“It was clear and it still is clear to me today that you only care about yourself,” Yang told Scott at his sentencing. “You went to great lengths to advance your own self interests. And you even stated in open court your disdain for the victim and how you still wanted the victim deported. It’s such a shame that you would feel like that and have so much hate.”

Scott’s January trial addressed eight felony charges across two cases – the 2023 bicycle theft case and the 2025 framing case. The jury reached a split verdict, finding Scott guilty of misappropriating a person’s identity to harm reputation and intimidating a witness in the 2025 case, and of second-degree recklessly endangering safety and bail jumping in the 2023 robbery case.

The jury found Scott not guilty of the most serious charges against him, armed robbery with use of force and aggravated battery with intent to cause bodily harm. Scott, who chose to forgo an attorney and represent himself, argued at trial that the bicycle was actually his and he was taking it back from Morales Reyes.

Despite Scott’s acquittal on charges against him that carried more severe penalties, Elderkin emphasized a need for Scott to spend a significant amount of time in prison due to a long pattern of violent behavior in his history, as well as a need to deter other people charged with crimes against immigrants to consider similar witness intimidation tactics.

“This case caught a lot of attention … it’s one that inmates around the country have probably heard of,” Elderkin said. “… They have to be told ‘do not get the same idea, because if you do, you will get penalized harshly.'”

Scott has a lengthy criminal history, including several violent convictions and other violent accusations that did not result in charges or ended up getting dismissed, Elderkin said.

The most severe was a 2010 beating death of a man. Scott, then 36, was initially charged with felony murder, but charges were reduced to second-degree recklessly endangering safety and Scott served a five-year prison sentence.

Elderkin said from records he viewed, a factor in the reduced conviction seemed to be that a key witness died before the case could go to trial. That case had a few similar details to the bike incident, Elderkin said; Scott got into a fight with a man over the price of a coat he was selling, and a witness told police they saw him repeatedly punching and kicking the man in the head before the man seemed to be unconscious.

The man went to the hospital, where he died. Elderkin said the autopsy found the cause of death to be blunt force trauma to the head by manner of homicide.

In court Feb. 27, Scott claimed the man fell back and hit his head after Scott punched him in a fight.

Yang gave Scott four separate sentences, to be served consecutively to each other, on each of the four counts he was convicted of.

At the prosecution’s suggestion, Yang sentenced Scott to 882 days of initial confinement – the exact amount of jail credit he had prior to sentencing – on the 2023 bail jumping charge, meaning he will not have to serve any additional incarceration time for that, but that he has no jail credit on the rest of his sentence. She also gave him one year of extended supervision for that charge.

On the second-degree recklessly endangering safety charge, Scott was sentenced to 10 years in prison and five years of extended supervision.

On the misappropriating identity charge in the 2025 case, Scott was sentenced to one year and six months in prison and two years of extended supervision.

On the intimidating a witness charge in the 2025 case, Scott was sentenced to five years in prison and five years on extended supervision.

Before sentencing, Scott sat in the Milwaukee County Jail for around 2½ years. His January trial was his second addressing the 2023 assault over the bike.

A January 2024 trial ended in a mistrial when the jury was not able to reach a unanimous verdict. Scott went through multiple attorney changes and threatened to stab one of his previous attorneys with a pencil. Ahead of and during his January 2026 trial, Yang repeatedly admonished Scott for “delay tactics,” including one instance in which he displayed a message he had written on papers at the defense table to the jury, notifying them of information Yang had said was not allowed to be mentioned to jurors.

Granting a motion from the prosecution, Yang dismissed an open 2022 burglary case Scott had been out on bond for when he was arrested in 2023.

Morales Reyes did not make an appearance at Scott’s sentencing hearing. Elderkin said Morales Reyes did not wish to be a part of any more court proceedings for the case.

“He has testified in not one but two jury trials, he has had his name broadcast and his image broadcast not just on local media, not just on national media, but international media,” Elderkin said. “He has done his service to testify to the truth in this case.”

After spending three weeks in ICE custody at Dodge County Jail, Morales Reyes was released in June 2024 after an immigration judge ruled he is not a threat to public safety.

Morales Reyes’ attorneys previously told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he is awaiting a determination on whether he will be permitted to stay in the United States. He has applied for a U visa, which allows undocumented witnesses and victims of certain crimes to stay in the U.S. for up to four years if they cooperate with law enforcement. However, U visa approvals can take years, his attorneys said.

Morales Reyes’ attorneys and elected officials like U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore have expressed concern that Morales Reyes’ arrest by immigration officials could scare other undocumented victims and witnesses away from reporting crimes and encourage others to commit crimes against them.

During Scott’s trial, Morales Reyes testified he is a husband and father of three and has been living in the United States for 40 years.