A twice-deported Belizean national, Akeem Garnett, 37, a.k.a. “Akeen Dean Garnett” and “Emerson Edmund Hewitt,” who most recently lived in Beverly Hills, and who currently is serving a nine-year sentence in a California prison for a domestic violence-related conviction was charged today with one felony count of illegal re-entry into the United States following his deportation. The indictment alleges that Garnett was deported from the United States on September 1, 2016 and November 16, 2017. He was most-recently found in Los Angeles County on April 9, 2019.

Garnett is charged with re-entering and remaining in the United States knowingly and voluntarily without having obtained permission from the United States Attorney General or the Secretary of Homeland Security following his deportation. Garnett served two years in state prison for a 2011 attempted first degree conviction. He also suffered a 2012 first-degree residential burglary with enhancements for committing the offense while on bail and for the benefit of a street gang, and received a nine year state prison sentence.  In July 2019, Garnett suffered a conviction for corporal injury on a spouse, with an enhancement for personally causing great bodily injury and is currently serving time in prison. 

He should be brought to federal court in Los Angeles to face the federal illegal re-entry charge in the coming months.  If convicted, Garnett faces a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.

An indictment contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.