Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez, the Dominican national who shot an off-duty federal border officer during a Manhattan robbery last year, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Monday — the maximum allowable term for the federal charge he pleaded guilty to.
U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska handed down the sentence in a Manhattan federal courtroom on October 5, 2026, saying "there is an overwhelming need to send a message to people who come to the US to commit crimes." Mora Nunez, 22, pleaded guilty earlier this year to possession of ammunition as an illegal alien, and Preska imposed the stiffest sentence the charge allows, telling the court that nothing instilled confidence he had learned to respect the law.
The Fort Washington Park shooting
The attack unfolded just after midnight on July 20, 2025, in Fort Washington Park in Manhattan, beneath the George Washington Bridge. Off-duty Customs and Border Protection officer Joshua Sinclair was sitting with a female companion on a rock along the Hudson River when, prosecutors said, Mora Nunez approached with a firearm drawn — minutes after allegedly stealing another woman's cellphone — and shot Sinclair in the face and right arm.
Sinclair returned fire, striking Mora Nunez twice, before the suspect fled on a motorbike driven by his co-defendant. Prosecutors said Sinclair has been unable to return to work and was still recovering and undergoing facial surgeries more than a year after the attack.
Apology in the courtroom
In court Monday, Mora Nunez choked back tears as he apologized while Sinclair watched from the gallery. Speaking through an interpreter, he said: "I have been separated from my little girl who I love very much, I really wish to be with her and be a better role model," adding, "I wish I could go back in time and avoid everything that has happened."
The accomplice and the pending state case
Mora Nunez's co-defendant, Christhian Aybar-Berroa, 23, also a Dominican national, was separately sentenced to 12 years and seven months in federal prison for helping Mora Nunez escape on the motorbike. Both men pleaded guilty to possessing ammunition as illegal aliens and face deportation after serving their sentences, according to the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office.
Neither man's legal troubles are over: Mora Nunez still faces 25 years to life in a separate pending attempted murder case brought by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, in which both defendants have pleaded not guilty. They are due back in court in November.
A lengthy rap sheet
Authorities laid out Mora Nunez's history in court. According to the Department of Homeland Security, he crossed the border near San Luis, Arizona, on April 4, 2023, and was released into the country; a judge later issued a final order of removal. His arrests in New York included felony grand larceny, petit larceny and reckless driving in October 2023; second- and third-degree assault in October 2024; and criminal contempt charges in late 2024 and early 2025 — plus an active Massachusetts warrant for armed robbery with a firearm.
Fifteen years is the federal chapter's end. The state case — and its potential life sentence — comes next.
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