A St. Croix man convicted of a violent 2022 home invasion was released from prison within months of sentencing through a plea deal that credited him with nearly four years of pretrial detention, only to be arrested again on an illegal firearm charge, court records show.
Manuel Perez, 30, appeared before Magistrate Judge Yolan C. Brow Ross on Wednesday in connection with unlicensed firearm possession. The arrest came just weeks after he walked free under a global plea agreement that consolidated four criminal cases.
Perez was originally charged with home invasion, first-degree robbery, first-degree assault, grand larceny and carrying a dangerous weapon after he broke into a woman's home in the Candido Guadalupe housing community on May 31, 2022, struck her in the head with a knife handle and tore a gold chain from her neck, according to court filings.
Less than two weeks later, on June 11, 2022, he returned to the same victim's home and slashed her window screen with a blade, triggering additional burglary and property destruction charges.
Rather than proceed to trial, Perez's attorney Michael Rogers negotiated with Assistant Attorney General Dellon Dellop to resolve all four pending cases. The window-slashing burglary case was dismissed entirely. The home invasion and robbery charges were dropped in exchange for a guilty plea to third-degree assault with a deadly weapon.
At sentencing on March 3, 2026, Superior Court Judge Yvette Ross-Edwards imposed a five-year prison term. However, the judge credited Perez with 1,361 days of pretrial detention already served, nearly three years and nine months. That credit satisfied almost the entire custodial portion of his sentence immediately.
Perez was released by October and arrested on October 21 for the weapons charge.
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