Mexican Illegal Immigrant in Indiana Rape Case Had Prior ICE Arrests, DHS Confirms

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed to Fox News Digital that Leonel Catalan-Torreblanca, an illegal immigrant from Mexico accused in a decade-long serial rape case in Indiana, had prior convictions for multiple crimes and was arrested twice by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Catalan-Torreblanca was arrested on April 22 and faces 30 charges including rape, sexual battery, criminal confinement, kidnapping, strangulation and burglary. ICE has lodged an immigration detainer with Indiana officials asking them not to release him.

DHS said Catalan-Torreblanca had prior convictions for patronizing a prostitute, voyeurism and multiple DUIs. Records show ICE arrested him in 2012 and released him under the Obama administration. ICE arrested him again in 2017, and he voluntarily returned to Mexico in 2018.

He then illegally re-entered the U.S., a felony, in 2023 under the Biden administration, according to DHS. The string of alleged sexual assaults spanned from March 2013 to January 2024.

Local and federal investigators had linked the attacks through DNA left at the crime scenes but lacked a suspect match because Catalan-Torreblanca's DNA was not in any federal databases, officials said. The case broke open when an ICE DNA swab was entered into the FBI's Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, database and triggered a direct match that led to his arrest.

"Thanks to the incredible work of the men and women of federal law enforcement, this demented rapist’s ten-year crime spree is over. He is now facing 30 charges including rape, sexual battery, criminal confinement, kidnapping, strangulation, and burglary," DHS spokeswoman Lauren Bis said. "ICE is asking Indiana officials to hand him over to ICE custody. Indiana cooperates with ICE, so we will be able to work together to get him off our streets and out of our country."