SUNNY ISLES BEACH, Fla. – A 22-year-old man remains at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center Thursday, a day after he was arrested for allegedly driving a Maybach that had a fake diplomat license plate.
Andres Lopez-Escobar, 22, faces charges of driving without a valid driver’s license, having a counterfeit license plate, motor vehicle registration or sticker and resisting an officer without violence.
While he was granted bond for the charges in Miami-Dade County court Thursday, he remains at the jail on an immigration hold.
According to his arrest report, Lopez-Escobar, who currently lives in Boca Raton, was arrested Wednesday afternoon in the 400 block of Sunny Isles Boulevard in Sunny Isles Beach.
Police said the fake diplomat tag also read “ambassador-at-large” and showed that it was non-expiring.
According to the report, Lopez-Escobar refused to lower the windows when officers approached the car, which had very dark tints causing the officers not to be able to see the driver or any other occupants inside the vehicle.
Police said Lopez-Escobar eventually cracked open the window and then let his foot off the brake, causing the vehicle to move forward.
Police said an officer then grabbed the window and pulled it down, continuing to give loud commands at the driver to put it in park.
According to the report, Lopez-Escobar finally complied but refused to exit the vehicle.
He was eventually pulled out of the car, taken to the ground and handcuffed.
According to the report, Lopez-Escobar told the officers he would not be answering any questions without his attorney.
“They tried to kill me,” he told Local 10 News while being led away in handcuffs. “Están locos.”
A special agent with the U.S. Department of State confirmed that the license plate was a fake, authorities said.
At the time of his arrest, Lopez-Escobar was with Cecilia Selina Mercado — a 32-year-old Latin singer known as Sessi — who had been pulled over Tuesday on Sunny Isles Boulevard, driving an Audi that also had a counterfeit diplomat license plate.
Mark Pitcavage with the Center on Extremism at the Anti-Defamation League told Local 10 News that Mercado and her boyfriend were using language that aligns with the Sovereign Citizen Movement in cellphone video taken during her arrest.
Pitcavage said the greater Miami area is a hotbed for Sovereign Citizens and that the movement is an extreme antigovernment movement that emerged in the 1980′s.
He added that bogus license plates are the most common and visible thing people see.
The video recorded during the traffic stop shows officers yanking Mercado out of the car after a back-and-forth in which her boyfriend argued Mercado is “not a United States citizen.”
Mercado, who was born in the Bronx, New York, left the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in the Maybach sedan driven by Lopez-Escobar.
Pitcavage said the movement has surged in the last four years and it is extremely dangerous for police officers conducting traffic stops.