Left: Donald Trump speaks at the annual Road to Majority conference in Washington, DC, in June 2024 (Allison Bailey/NurPhoto via AP). Center: Demetric Scott (Milwaukee County). Right: Ramon Morales Reyes (Department of Homeland Security).
A Wisconsin man has been convicted of orchestrating an elaborate plot to get a Mexican man deported by the Trump administration before he could testify against him in a criminal case. The man managed to fool Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and DHS into thinking he was an immigrant dishwasher and father of three who was penning threatening letters about President Donald Trump, with federal officials plastering the dad”s face and name on the DHS website after mistakenly arresting him for forging threats.
“I wrote the letters. I don’t deny that. I never denied that,” Demetric Scott said in court last week before he was found guilty of felony identity theft and witness intimidation, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I tried to get him deported,” Scott said about the dishwasher he posed as, Ramon Morales Reyes, who is now facing deportation.
Scott, 52, was convicted Thursday following a trial in Milwaukee County, according to online court records. He allegedly got help from his mother, unbeknownst to her, during his death-threat stunt by asking her to mail fake letters that were purported to be from Morales Reyes. The letters included threats to kill Trump and “blow up the White House” — and the entire country — “like 911 in New York,” according to prosecutors.
“I am not scared of the Trump Administration,” Scott wrote in one of the phony letters, according to a criminal complaint.
“We are tired of this president messing with us Mexicans,” Scott said. “We have done more for this country than you white people — you have been deporting my family and I think it is time Donald J. Trump get what he has coming to him. I will self deport myself back to Mexico but not before I … shoot your precious president.”
Scott framed Morales Reyes after being arrested for allegedly attacking him while stealing a bicycle Morales Reyes was riding in Milwaukee. Prosecutors said Scott kicked Morales Reyes off his bike and then stabbed him with a box cutter before fleeing on the bike. He was in jail for the alleged attack when he orchestrated the death-threat scam to try to get Morales Reyes deported before he could testify against Scott.
“They just need to pick his a— up,” Scott told an acquaintance during a jailhouse phone call. “I’m dead serious cause I got jury trial on July 15th. I got final pretrial on June 16th so if he is apprehended by the 16th, we can go into court and say, ‘Hey, he’s in custody now. … There is no reason for us to even continue the July 15th jury date.’ And the judge will agree cause if he gets picked up by ICE, there won’t be a jury trial so they will probably dismiss it that day. That’s my plan.”
In another call, Scott said: “I don’t want to take a chance and lose, I’m facing too much time. So, I told my lawyer, postpone this get everything we can get that way I can beat this motherf—ing case. I said, ’cause the next time I go to court, I want to win.'”
Law enforcement sources familiar with the death-threat investigation told CNN that federal officials knew Morales Reyes did not pen the letters but Noem and her office reported that he wrote and sent them to an ICE office anyway, while publicly identifying and accusing him in a press release. Time stamps on social media posts from Noem and the timing of the DHS press release both fall on the same day that a judge signed a search warrant for Scott’s jail cell in connection with the letters — May 28, 2025, according to court documents.
“This threat comes not even a year after President Trump was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania and less than two weeks after former FBI Director Comey called for the President’s assassination,” Noem said. “All politicians and members of the media should take notice of these repeated attempts on President Trump’s life and tone down their rhetoric. I will continue to take all measures necessary to ensure the protection of President Trump.”
ICE arrested Morales Reyes in May 2025 and booked him at the Dodge County Jail in Juneau, Wisconsin, pending removal proceedings as he was “in the U.S. illegally,” according to DHS officials. The Associated Press reports that he moved to the U.S. from Mexico in the 1980s and was working as a dishwasher in Milwaukee. The father of three, who is married, is currently out on bond and has applied for a U-visa, which allows crime victims and their family members to live in the U.S., per the AP.
“He’s been traumatized by going through all this, all these different levels that feel like victimization,” deportation defense attorney Cain Oulahan told the AP. “He just wants to work and be with his family again.”
Scott is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 27. He faces up to 26 years in prison.
