PROVIDENCE – FBI agents raided a building on Dorrance Street in downtown Providence on Thursday morning.
“There is court authorized activity at that location,” said Jim Martin, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Cunha’s office. He declined to elaborate.
The 127 Dorrance St. building houses the offices of Joseph Molina Flynn, an immigration lawyer in Massachusetts and Rhode Island who serves as a municipal court judge in Central Falls. Molina Flynn’s office is the focus of the search, according to multiple sources.
Molina Flynn was the first openly gay person and the first formerly undocumented person to serve on the bench in Central Falls, according to the city.
An FBI spokeswoman confirmed only that the agency “is conducting court authorized activity at that address.”
Molina Flynn resigns
Shortly after news of the FBI’s actions broke, Central Falls Mayor Maria Rivera announced Molina Flynn’s resignation.
“I was deeply concerned to see the reports of an FBI search at the law office of Joseph Molina Flynn,” Rivera said in a statement. “As the Central Falls community knows, transparency and accountability are priorities of mine. In an effortto uphold the integrity and focus of the Municipal Court, Judge Molina Flynn has officially resigned his position.”
Municipal Court Associate Judge Robert McConnell will fill in temporarily until Molina Flynn’s position is filled.
Molina Flynn’s background from undocumented to law school grad
The Journal reported at his appointment in 2021 that Molina Flynn came to the United States from Colombia when he was 9 years old, following the arrival of family members. Before eventually settling in Pawtucket, where he grew up, Molina Flynn first arrived in Central Falls. He was on a visitors’ visa, which he overstayed, becoming undocumented.
He remembered being excited to arrive in the United States, and feeling an “overwhelming sense of peace” after leaving a homeland plagued by violence.
He also faced challenges in the United States. He vividly remembers his first day of school in Central Falls. Molina Flynn was in a predominantly white classroom and didn’t speak English. He was able to tell the teacher “hello,” but when she asked him something else, he wasn’t able to respond with much beyond, “What?”
The kids erupted in laughter, he said.
“I became determined that they wouldn’t laugh again and I’d learn to speak English,” Molina Flynn told The Journal.
Molina Flynn’s biography on the Roger Williams University School of Law website, where he is identified as an adjunct professor, says he graduated summa cum laude from Johnson & Wales University with a B.S. in accounting and obtained his Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School.
He founded Molina Flynn Law Offices in 2015 as a solo practitioner and focuses on immigration, family and criminal matters. It says that he focused his practice on the intersection of these areas and works with other practitioners as a “crimmigration” consultant.
This story has been updated to include new information.
