A 36-year-old Venezuelan illegal immigrant already facing burglary charges walked out of a California courtroom on his own recognizance, and prosecutors say he fatally stabbed a 68-year-old retiree the very next day.
Marcos Iriarte-Valdez now faces a murder charge with special circumstances in the killing of Todd Stewart, a retired Martinez, California, resident who was stabbed outside his own home on Aug. 6 during what police described as an apparent burglary attempt. The case has drawn fierce criticism of California's sanctuary policies and the judicial decision that put Iriarte-Valdez back on the street barely 24 hours before Stewart died.
Contra Costa County District Attorney Diane Becton, a Democrat, filed a felony complaint charging Iriarte-Valdez with one count of murder plus several special-circumstance allegations under California law, including murder committed during a burglary, which carries a potential sentence of life in prison without parole. The complaint also includes sentencing enhancements for the alleged use of a knife and for committing the offense while on conditional release.
The timeline is short and damning. Iriarte-Valdez had been arrested in April on at least two charges of residential burglary with persons present, stemming from incidents in Orinda, a nearby East Bay community. He was placed on pretrial release with home detention monitoring.
On Aug. 4, authorities arrested him again for violating the terms of that monitoring. The next day, Aug. 5, Contra Costa Superior Court Judge Nichelle Holmes, a Newsom appointee, released him on his own recognizance and returned him to home detention.
One day later, surveillance video captured Iriarte-Valdez wearing a tactical vest and emerging from a Cadillac near Stewart's Martinez home. Stewart, 68, was heard screaming in pain. He did not survive.
Police used that surveillance footage to obtain an arrest warrant from Contra Costa Superior Court on charges of murder and committing a felony while on own-recognizance release. A Contra Costa County SWAT team arrested Iriarte-Valdez at his home just after 6 p.m. Pacific time on Friday. Bail was initially set at $1.1 million.
By Wednesday, Iriarte-Valdez had pleaded not guilty before Judge David Goldstein, who was appointed by former Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown. Becton's office said Goldstein called Iriarte-Valdez a "risk to public safety" and ordered him held without bail.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement placed a federal detainer on Iriarte-Valdez on Saturday, the day after his arrest. ICE told reporters that Iriarte-Valdez had been "legally admitted" to the United States in 2007. But the Department of Homeland Security more recently identified him on X, the social media platform, as an "illegal alien," using the alternate name "Marcos Valdezusper."
How Iriarte-Valdez, described as a Venezuelan national with Spanish citizenship, transitioned from lawful admission to illegal status remains unclear. Fox News Digital reported reaching out to ICE for further clarity on that timeline; no additional response was included in the reporting. The gap matters: if federal authorities knew his status had changed before the April burglary arrest, the question becomes whether an earlier detainer could have kept him in custody and out of Judge Holmes's courtroom entirely.
ICE also listed additional charges Iriarte-Valdez had faced beyond the Orinda burglaries: inflicting corporal injury on a spouse, receiving stolen property, trespassing, loitering, and entering a noncommercial dwelling. None of those charges, apparently, were enough to keep him locked up.
DHS has since demanded that California hand Iriarte-Valdez over for removal from the country. In a social media statement, the department did not hold back:
"Another innocent American was killed because of California's reckless sanctuary policies. How many more innocent people have to die before Gavin Newsom and sanctuary politicians stop playing games with the safety of Americans?"
Breitbart reported that DHS also posted a direct appeal aimed at the governor: "CA Governor Gavin Newsom must not release this murderer from jail and turn him over to us so we can REMOVE him from our nation."
White House border czar Thomas Homan appeared on Fox News and placed blame squarely on California's sanctuary framework and the governor who defends it. Homan argued that nothing in the state's sanctuary law prevented local officials from alerting federal agents before a release.
"There's nothing against the sanctuary law in California for a deputy to pick a phone up and say, 'Hey, this guy's being let go in an hour.'"
Homan went further, tying the death directly to political choices made in Sacramento:
"This person is dead because Governor Newsom and the State of California put politics, hatred of President Trump, over public safety."
Fox News Digital reported reaching out to Gov. Newsom, Judge Holmes, and DA Becton for comment. No responses were included in the reporting. The silence from Holmes is particularly notable, she is still scheduled to preside over Iriarte-Valdez's Sept. 9 appearance on the original April burglary charges, the same charges that brought him into her courtroom in the first place.
California's sanctuary laws have long restricted cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. The policy framework is designed to shield illegal immigrants from deportation by limiting when and how local officials can communicate with ICE. Critics, including Homan and DHS, contend those restrictions directly contributed to Stewart's death by preventing the kind of routine coordination that might have kept Iriarte-Valdez in federal custody.
Becton, the Democratic district attorney, issued a public statement after the murder charge was filed. She struck a tone of resolve and sympathy:
"Our office will pursue this case with diligence and integrity to hold Iriarte-Valdez fully accountable under the law for this devastating act of violence."
She added: "Our thoughts are with the victim's loved ones and the larger community as they navigate this unimaginable loss."
The pledge of accountability raises an obvious question. Iriarte-Valdez had been arrested on serious felony burglary charges in April, residential burglaries with persons present, meaning people were home when he allegedly broke in. He was released on pretrial monitoring. He violated those monitoring terms and was arrested again on Aug. 4. And a judge released him again the next day. The system Becton's office operates within had multiple chances to keep this man in custody. It chose not to.
The New York Post reported that Judge Holmes was appointed to the Contra Costa bench by Newsom in 2024, placing her decision to release Iriarte-Valdez squarely within the orbit of the governor's judicial picks. The question of whether non-citizens accused of violent crimes in California face adequate pretrial scrutiny now sits at the center of a widening political fight over the state's approach to both criminal justice and immigration enforcement.
Noncitizen criminal conduct has drawn increasing legal attention across the country. In Michigan, the attorney general recently charged five non-citizens for voting illegally in the 2024 election, a reminder that the consequences of lax enforcement extend well beyond any single jurisdiction.
Martinez Police, for their part, cautioned that the investigation remains active. "The investigation is ongoing and our understanding of the incident may change as more individuals are interviewed and evidence is collected and analyzed," the department said in a statement.
Iriarte-Valdez's preliminary hearing on the murder charge is set for Sept. 1 in nearby Richmond, before Judge Michael Nieto, another Newsom appointee. Eight days later, on Sept. 9, he is scheduled to appear before Judge Holmes on the original April burglary charges.
That means the same judge who freed Iriarte-Valdez on Aug. 5 will sit across from him again in September, this time with a murder charge on his record and a dead retiree in the ground. Whether Holmes recuses herself or proceeds as scheduled is an open question the court has not addressed.
Fox News also reported that DHS had placed an immigration detainer on Iriarte-Valdez as early as September 2025, months before the April burglary arrests. If that detainer was on file and California authorities declined to honor it, the timeline becomes even more damaging for the state's sanctuary framework. It would mean federal authorities flagged Iriarte-Valdez for removal well before he allegedly broke into homes in Orinda and long before he allegedly took Todd Stewart's life.
The broader pattern of institutional failure, officials who prioritize political ideology over public safety, then express condolences after the predictable consequences arrive, is not limited to California's courts. Across the country, progressive institutions and officials face mounting legal scrutiny for conduct that falls well short of the public trust they claim to uphold.
Todd Stewart was a 68-year-old retiree living in a quiet East Bay suburb. He was stabbed outside his own home. The man accused of killing him had been arrested, released, arrested again, released again, and, according to federal authorities, flagged for immigration enforcement that California declined to carry out.
Every link in that chain was a choice. And Todd Stewart paid for all of them.
