A woman who was arrested for spitting at a police officer at the National Zoo earlier this month was mistakenly held in jail for a week, even though the Justice Department had decided not to seek pretrial detention, according to court documents and sources who spoke with CBS News.
Kristal Rios Esquivel was arrested Aug. 20, for allegedly trying to enter a restricted staff entrance at a birdhouse at the National Zoo in Northwest Washington, D.C. Prosecutors alleged in charging documents that she spat on a police sergeant while being arrested and also made “physical contact” with an officer’s leg.
A D.C. federal judge’s order in Rios Esquivel’s case reveals a series of errors or failures to follow court directions by federal and D.C. officials after her arrest inadvertently resulted in her detention.
In his order, U.S. District Judge Zia Faruqui said Rios Esquivel should have appeared before a federal magistrate judge on Aug. 22, but “federal authorities did not bring Rios Esquivel to court until August 25, 2025.”
“At the August 25 hearing, the government did not seek detention of Ms. Rios Esquivel,” Faruqui continued. “Instead, it asked for her release on minimal conditions of supervision.” She said in a footnote, “It is baffling why Rios Esquivel was then detained in the first place.”
On Tuesday, Rios Esquivel’s defense lawyer filed a motion claiming she had not been released and was being illegally detained. A defense attorney at one point filed a court document that read, “HELP!!!!”
A defense lawyer’s filing says
Judge Faruqui diagnosed the problem, writing, “The Department of Corrections informed defense counsel that it could not comply with this Court’s order because there was a ‘hit’ on Esquivel Rios in the warrant system. However, that warrant was the very warrant for which she appeared on August 25.”
A Justice Department prosecutor then intervened to help remove the incorrect “hit” in the warrant database that was blocking Rios Esquivel’s release, sources told CBS News. That meant Esquivel Rios’ name was mistakenly coming up in a Corrections Department database as being under an active warrant, as if there were an incident separate from the one stemming from her Aug. 20 arrest.
The judge called this an incident of “false imprisonment” and noted it was not the first time it had happened this year.
“The greater question of why it takes moving heaven and earth to ensure a person who is ordered to be released is actually released—in a timely manner—remains unanswered,” Faruqui wrote.
One former Justice Department attorney tells CBS News the handling of the arrest and detention of Kristal Rios Esquivel is creating a sense of “foreboding.”
The D.C. Department of Corrections and U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C. did not respond to requests for comment.
Rios Esquivel’s case is not the only ongoing prosecution in the nation’s capital that is facing scrutiny as the Trump administration’s ongoing federal takeover of the district continues.
On Monday, federal prosecutors in D.C. admitted in a court filing that they had failed to secure a felony indictment against Sydney Reid for allegedly assaulting a federal officer. In charging documents, federal prosecutors allege that while Reid was recording FBI and ICE agents arresting a gang member who was released from the D.C. local jail in late July, she “forcefully pushed,” an FBI agent’s hand against a cement wall, which “caused lacerations.” Prosecutors then dropped the charge to a misdemeanor, which does not require a grand jury indictment.
In another case involving the same felony statute, federal prosecutors also failed to secure a felony indictment from a grand jury this week against an ex-Justice Department employee who admitted throwing a sandwich at a federal law enforcement officer in Washington.
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