The man accused of framing an immigrant for threatening to shoot President Donald Trump rejected a plea offer from prosecutors and will continue to a jury trial on Oct. 27.
Demetric Scott, 52, is accused of impersonating an undocumented immigrant and sending letters to federal authorities in May threatening to assassinate Trump. Prosecutors say Scott did this in an attempt to deport the immigrant, 55-year-old Ramón Morales-Reyes, so that he could not testify against Scott in an armed robbery case from 2023.
At a hearing Oct. 3, Circuit Judge Kristy Yang ordered a larger jury panel of 40 people, instead of 30, because of the public attention the case has received. She also asked Scott to try to be “presentable” at trial and not have sudden outbursts or address others in the courtroom.
Earlier in the hearing, Scott had used an expletive when saying he would not take the plea offer made by Assistant District Attorney Kyle Elderkin.
Elderkin did not detail his offer in court on Oct. 3.
Scott had indicated he was open to a plea deal in a letter he sent to the judge, dated Sept. 15.
In the letter, Scott wrote that he was willing to plead guilty to lesser charges, including felony battery, negligent handling of a dangerous weapon and misdemeanor counts of armed theft, intimidation of victim, and forgery.
Morales-Reyes is still set to be a witness in the trial, according to the state’s witness list. Other witnesses include current and former Milwaukee Police Department employees and those who helped mail the letters, including Scott’s mother.
Scott was charged on June 2 with four felony counts, including intimidating a witness. The trial will combine the intimidation case with the robbery case in 2023, where he was charged with four felony counts, including armed robbery with use of force.
Demetric Scott appears in a preliminary hearing in a Milwaukee County Court on Aug. 5, 2025. Prosecutors say Scott was behind a series of letters sent to state and federal officials threatening to assassinate President Donald Trump. The letters had the return address and name of the victim in his case, an immigrant Ramón Morales-Reyes.
The armed robbery case against Scott had already gone to trial once in January 2024. At the time, Morales-Reyes testified that Scott had cut him under his armpit with a corkscrew while attempting to rob him of his bicycle. Scott, in his defense, said the bicycle was his and had been stolen from him a few days before.
On Jan. 26, 2024, the jury failed to reach a unanimous decision, which is required in Wisconsin criminal cases. The judge declared a mistrial and scheduled a new trial.
Prosecutors say Scott sent letters from jail pretending to be Morales-Reyes, writing: “I will self deport myself back to Mexico but not before I use my (gun) to shoot your precious president in his head.”
Photo of a letter published by the Department of Homeland Security, allegedly written by Ramón Morales Reyes
Scott put Morales-Reyes’ name and address on the letters and asked people to mail them on his behalf to prosecutors, the police, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, according to court records.
On May 22, 2025, one day after receiving the letter, immigration agents arrested Morales-Reyes after he dropped one of his children off at school.
Morales-Reyes was detained despite having applied for a U-visa, which allows undocumented witnesses of certain crimes to stay in the U.S. for up to four years if they cooperate with law enforcement.
Ramón Morales-Reyes
Under the Biden administration, ICE agents were advised to generally not take enforcement actions against crime victims like Morales-Reyes with pending visa applications. Under Trump, agents no longer need to seek information about victim status if it’s not shown to them in an arrest.
Although investigators quickly decided the letters weren’t authored by Morales-Reyes, immigration officials still accused him of threatening Trump six days later and placed him in deportation proceedings because he did not have legal status.
Morales-Reyes was placed in removal proceedings in the non-detained docket in immigration court. So far, no hearing about his immigration case has been scheduled, and there have not been updates on his U-visa application, according to his attorneys.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Man going to trial for robbing immigrant and trying to deport him