Jilted ex-NYPD cop admits posing as ICE agent, threatening woman with deportation

John Annese, New York Daily News on Sep 30, 2026

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NEW YORK — A former NYPD sergeant admitted Wednesday that he posed as an ICE agent and demanded a Queens woman report with her family to an immigration facility to settle what prosecutors called a “personal vendetta.”

Atickul Islam, 30, threw away his police career and possibly his freedom with text messages he sent March 29, 2025, when he threatened to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the woman, then pretended he was the agency’s New York field office director. Law enforcement sources said she had rebuffed his romantic advances.

“ICE will come get you and your family and you will always live poor. Matter of fact I will make the phone call myself,” he texted the woman using his personal phone, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. “Since I know where you guys live do not worry enjoy the stay for as long as it lasts.”

He then texted from a different number, claiming to be an ICE official named James W. Anderson, and demanded the victim and her family report to an ICE location in New York City by April 15 or face “further legal action and enforcement measures,” according to prosecutors. The woman, who lived in Queens, and her family, are immigrants, Assistant U.S. Attorney Russell Noble confirmed in court.

On Wednesday, Islam pleaded guilty in Brooklyn Federal Court to a single count of false personation of an officer or employee of the U.S. government, his leg shaking nervously under a table throughout the proceeding.

“I sent a text message impersonating a federal field office director of ICE, via a cell phone,” he said.

The charge, a felony, carries a maximum of three years behind bars, though federal guideline estimates put his possible sentence at zero to six months.

“Instead of upholding the law and serving members of his community, Atickul Islam used lies and the threat of deportation to take revenge on a woman in his personal life,” U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said Wednesday. “We expect law enforcement officers of every rank to act with honesty and integrity. As demonstrated by today’s plea, our Office will not tolerate any officer who would use the threat of federal law enforcement to carry out a personal vendetta.”

Islam, a Brooklyn native with a master of arts in criminal justice degree from John Jay College, joined the NYPD in 2018, and made sergeant in 2023.

As part of his plea, he was required to quit the NYPD, which he did last week, and the felony conviction makes it illegal for him to ever possess a firearm again.

Islam was off-duty when he committed the crime, a police source told the Daily News. But when the NYPD caught wind of it, the department opened an Internal Affairs Bureau probe and brought in the feds.

“The NYPD referred this incident to federal prosecutors after the department discovered the alleged misconduct,” an NYPD spokesperson said Wednesday.

Islam’s lawyer, John Arlia, told Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Dora Irizarry that Islam sent a “subsequent apology text” to the woman, though he added that it doesn’t excuse what Islam did. “There was an apology text within hours,” Arlia said.

Islam has been free on $25,000 bond since his indictment in November. He’s scheduled to be sentenced March 24.

He declined comment as he left the courtroom Wednesday.

Islam’s threats were made just two months into the second Trump administration, as ICE ramped up a mass deportation operation with masked agents across the country.

Earlier this month, the FBI issued a law enforcement bulletin urging agents to identify themselves because criminals have been impersonating ICE officials, Wired reported. The bulletin listed five incidents this year involving ICE impersonators, including a February 2025 incident in Brooklyn where a man is accused of posing as an ICE agent as he beat, robbed and tried to rape a 51-year-old Hispanic woman.

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