ICE Records Show Drunk Illegal Alien on Probation for Felony DUI When He Killed Illinois Woman

The heavily intoxicated illegal immigrant who killed a woman last summer in a head-on crash in Illinois had a disturbing history of drunk driving and a lengthy rap sheet but was protected by the state’s sanctuary policies, federal records obtained by Judicial Watch confirm. Days after the collision in early August of last year Judicial Watch submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for information involving the Guatemalan migrant, Rolando Ico-Choc, who was 30 years old at the time. A little past noon on August 9, 2025, the illegal alien drove southbound in the northbound lanes of a rural Illinois highway, colliding head-on with a vehicle driven by 61-year-old Darcy Connolly-Brunner. Both drivers were pronounced deceased at the scene, according to law enforcement officials where the incident occurred in Stephenson County, which is in the northwestern part of the state near the Wisconsin border.

Weeks later the toxicology report revealed Ico-Choc had a blood alcohol level of. 244, more than three times the legal limit in Illinois, and that no alcohol was detected in Connolly-Brunner’s system. The crime received more media attention than usual because the victim was the mother of a former professional basketball star, Sophie Brunner, an All-American forward at Arizona State University who played for the U.S. national team and the Phoenix Mercury in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). Few bothered to question or report the illegal immigrant’s extensive criminal history even after ICE issued a scathing statement just days after the crash trashing “reckless sanctuary laws” that prevented local authorities from transferring the “dangerous alien at least seven separate times” in the three years before the deadly crash despite a “longstanding criminal record.” The Homeland Security agency charged with enforcing immigration laws revealed at the time that Ico-Choc had been arrested repeatedly for driving under the influence and other serious offenses, including endangering the life of a child, domestic battery, and resisting law enforcement.

Specific details were not offered at the time, and ICE took nearly a year to provide Judicial Watch with records that shed more light on the vast criminal history of an offender repeatedly shielded from deportation by one state’s sanctuary law. Nearly a decade ago Illinois enacted the TRUST Act, known as the gold standard of broad statewide protection against deportation even for illegal aliens that commit felonies like Ico-Choc. The measure prohibits all law enforcement agencies in the Prairie State from participating in federal civil immigration enforcement or cooperating with federal authorities. It also bans police from stopping, arresting, or detaining individuals based on immigration status or honoring ICE detainers. The radical statewide sanctuary policies ensure criminal aliens are free to reoffend, even after committing brutal crimes against Americans, a recently published congressional probe claims. In 2024 and 2025 alone, the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) released nearly 100 criminal aliens back onto the streets instead of cooperating with ICE, according to the investigation conducted by the House Judiciary Committee. The Cook County Sheriff’s Office was the biggest offender releasing 408 criminal aliens from its custody in 2025 instead of honoring active ICE detainers, including those with pending charges for domestic battery with bodily harm, domestic violence, and firearms offenses.

The federal records obtained by Judicial Watch, 29 pages in total, document multiple exchanges involving Ico-Choc’s encounters with law enforcement dating back to 2022 between ICE, the Stephenson County Sheriff’s Office, and the Freeport Police Department in Stephenson County’s largest city. They also show that the illegal immigrant was on probation for a previous felony drunk-driving conviction when he killed Connolly-Brunner. Beginning in the spring of 2022 Ico-Choc was arrested and charged three times in a little over a year for driving under the influence (DUI) and his license was revoked. In 2023 he was convicted of domestic battery against his wife and received two years’ probation, the records show. In most of the cases ICE issued a detainer to take custody and deport the Guatemalan, but local authorities refused and released him instead. The last ICE detainer, which could have saved an innocent woman’s life, was issued on January 18, 2025, with the Stephenson County Jail and listed Ico-Choc’s three convictions for felony aggravated DUI, domestic battery, and DUI. The jail released him early the next morning, the records obtained by Judicial Watch reveal. Months later he got drunk and drove head on into Connolly-Brunner.

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