Kilmar Abrego Garcia is freed from Tennessee jail so he can rejoin family in Maryland to await trial

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from jail in Tennessee on Friday so he can rejoin his family in Maryland while awaiting trial on human smuggling charges.

The Salvadoran national’s case became a flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda after he was mistakenly deported in March. Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, only to detain him on criminal charges.

Although Abrego Garcia was deemed eligible for pretrial release, he had remained in jail at the request of his attorneys, who feared the Republican administration could try to immediately deport him again if he were freed. Those fears were somewhat allayed by a recent ruling in a separate case in Maryland, which requires immigration officials to allow Abrego Garcia time to mount a challenge to any deportation order.

On Friday, Abrego Garcia walked out of the Putnam County jail wearing a short-sleeved white button-down shirt and black pants and accompanied by defense attorney Rascoe Dean. They did not speak to reporters but got into a white SUV and sped off.

The release order from the Tennessee court requires Abrego Garcia to travel directly to Maryland, where he will be in home detention with his brother designated as his custodian. He is required to submit to electronic monitoring and can only leave the home for work, religious services and other approved activities.

An attorney for Abrego Garcia in his deportation case in Maryland, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement Friday his client had been “reunited with his loving family” for the first time since he was wrongfully deported to a notorious El Salvador prison in March.

“While his release brings some relief, we all know that he is far from safe,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “ICE detention or deportation to an unknown third country still threaten to tear his family apart.”

Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem slammed the decision to free Abrego Garcia.

“Activist liberal judges have attempted to obstruct our law enforcement every step of the way in removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from our country,” Noem said in a statement. She called ordering his release a “new low” by a “publicity hungry Maryland judge,” apparently referring to the judge overseeing his original deportation case rather than the Tennessee judge who ordered him freed.

“We will not stop fighting till this Salvadoran man faces justice and is OUT of our country,” Noem said.

Earlier this week, Abrego Garcia's criminal attorneys filed a motion asking the judge to dismiss the smuggling case, claiming he is being prosecuted to punish him for challenging his removal to El Salvador.

In a statement Friday, defense attorney Sean Hecker called the charges a “vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the Administration’s continuing assault on the rule of law.”

Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges, which stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer shows a calm exchange with Abrego Garcia. There were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. However, Abrego Garcia was allowed to continue driving with only a warning.

A Department of Homeland Security agent testified he did not begin investigating the traffic stop until this April, when the government was facing mounting pressure to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.

Abrego Garcia has an American wife and children and has lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the U.S. illegally. In 2019, an immigration judge granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador, where he faces a “well-founded fear” of violence, according to court filings. He was required to check in yearly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement while Homeland Security issued him a work permit.

Although Abrego Garcia can’t be deported to El Salvador without violating the judge’s order, Homeland Security officials have said they plan to deport him to an unnamed third country.

The Putnam County Justice Center is pictured, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, in Cookeville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Brett Carlsen)

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, third from left, leaves the Putnam County Jail, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, in Cookeville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Brett Carlsen)

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, fourth from right, leaves the Putnam County Jail, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, in Cookeville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Brett Carlsen)

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, third from right, leaves the Putnam County Jail, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, in Cookeville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Brett Carlsen)

Kilmar Abrego Garcia , second right, leaves the Putnam County Jail, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, in Cookeville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Brett Carlsen)

Kilmar Abrego Garcia , second right, leaves the Putnam County Jail, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, in Cookeville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Brett Carlsen)

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, center, leaves the Putnam County Jail, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, in Cookeville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Brett Carlsen)

FILE - Katheryn Millwee holds a portrait of Kilmar Abrego Garcia outside the federal courthouse on June 25, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — The first witness at the sex trafficking trial of three brothers, two of them high-end real estate brokers, testified Tuesday that the thrill of attending a party at actor Zac Efron’s apartment turned into a nightmare when, hours later, one of the brothers repeatedly raped her at their home and taunted her about it.

The woman, who testified under a pseudonym, is one of several alleged victims expected to testify against brothers Tal, Oren and Alon Alexander, who are accused of teaming up to drug and rape women and girls over several years.

Lawyers for the brothers say the sex was consensual.

Prosecutors say the Alexander brothers used their ties to the wealthy and famous to lure multiple victims.

The woman said she was 20, an anthropology major in college, when she met two of the brothers at the party at Efron's New York apartment. She accompanied a friend who had recently met Tal Alexander, and who invited her there to watch the last game of the 2012 NBA Finals. She said she had little interaction with Efron, who is not accused of any wrongdoing.

After the game, the woman went to an afterparty at a Manhattan nightclub, where she said she was given a drink and remembered little afterward until she woke up naked on a bed in another apartment with Alon Alexander, also naked, standing over her. She said she repeatedly tried to get up, but he kept pushing her back, prompting her to say: “I don’t want to have sex with you.”

“Haha, you already did,” she recalled him saying as he “laughed in my face.”

She said he then overpowered and raped her. While it was happening, Tal Alexander walked into the room briefly, but did nothing to stop the attack, the woman told the jury. He seemed “super nonchalant," she said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Madison Smyser said in her opening statement to the jury that the Alexander brothers “masqueraded as party boys when really they were predators." Smyser said they used “whatever means necessary” including luxury accommodations, flights, drugs, alcohol and sometimes brute force to lure women into situations where they could be raped.

Attorney Teny Geragos, representing Oren Alexander, urged the jury to reject prosecutors' “monstrous story.”

She said the brothers, who got out of college in 2008, were successful, ambitious and sometimes arrogant as they pursued women in nightclubs, bars, restaurants and online in what is known as “hookup culture,” hoping to have as much sex as possible.

“You may find this behavior immoral, but it is not criminal,” Geragos said. She said some of the brothers' accusers were hoping to enrich themselves with lawsuits and spoke of themselves as victims only after feeling regret that they had done illegal drugs or had sex outside of relationships with their boyfriends.

Attorney Deanna Paul, representing Tal Alexander, warned jurors that the subject matter of the case was disturbing and will seem like an R-rated movie, especially after prosecutors portrayed the brothers as “monsters.”

“In their early 20s, Tal and his brothers were party boys. They were womanizers. They slept with many, many women,” she said.

She urged jurors to reject the criminal charges against the brothers if they conclude that the accusers' testimony was unreliable.

Oren and Tal Alexander were real estate dealers who specialized in high-end properties in Miami, New York and Los Angeles. Their brother, Alon, graduated from New York Law School before running the family’s private security firm. Tal is 39 years old while Alon and Oren, who are twins, are 38.

An indictment alleges that the men conspired to entice women to join them at vacation destinations such as New York's Hamptons by providing flights and luxury hotel rooms.

The brothers have been held without bail since their December 2024 arrest in Miami, where they lived.

During her testimony Tuesday, the trial's first witness said she fled the room where Alon Alexander had attacked her after he fell asleep. The woman remained composed through much of her testimony, though she got choked up several times. She cried as she recalled reaching out several years after the attack to friends she had told about the experience so she could be reminded that others loved her.

In this courtroom sketch, assistant U.S. Attorney Madison Smyser gestures to Alon Alexander, Oren Alexander and Tal Alexander as she presents her opening statement with Judge Valerie Caproni presiding on the bench in Manhattan federal court on the first day of the Alexander brothers' sex trafficking trial, Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

In this courtroom sketch, assistant U.S. Attorney Madison Smyser questions a witness going by the pseudonym "Katie Moore" regarding the alleged sexual assault by Alon Alexander, seated far left, as Judge Valerie Caproni presides on the bench in Manhattan federal court, Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

In this courtroom sketch, from left, Alon Alexander, Oren Alexander and Tal Alexander appear in Manhattan federal court on the first day of their sex trafficking trial, Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

In this courtroom sketch, a witness, testifying under the pseudonym "Katie Moore," cries on the witness stand in Manhattan federal court on the first day of the sex trafficking trial of Alon Alexander, Oren Alexander and Tal Alexander, Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

FILE - Oren and Tal Alexander speak at a panel at the Rockstars of Real Estate Event, Sept. 3, 2013 in New York. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Invision for DETAILS Magazine/AP Images, File)