Former USD Basketball Player Has Been Deported Following Rape Conviction

After a six-month incarceration, former USD basketball player Mihai Carcoana was deported on Oct. 3.

Clay County Sheriff Andy Howe says this is the first time during his tenure an inmate was deported immediately after a sentence.

“We’ve never had in my history a person here on state charges that then was released to be deported,” Howe said. Deportations are carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“We transferred his street clothes to him, and he went into [ICE] custody directly from the jail,” Howe said. “At that point, we don’t have any more contact with him, so I haven’t received any more follow up.”

According to former Clay County States’ Attorney Alexis Tracy, Carcoana’s plea agreement came with the stipulation of being released into the custody of ICE. Tracy now works as an Assistant Attorney General, a position she began in June of 2023.

“We knew the defendant had articulated he wanted to leave and go back home, but deportation was definitely contemplated and noted in our plea agreement,” Tracy said.

Carcoana first moved to Vermillion in the Fall of 2022 as a sophomore transfer student from Toledo State University. 

Playing in only 10 basketball games for the Yotes, he was arrested Dec. 9, 2022 on charges of second degree rape.

Initially, Carcoana pled not guilty in January 2023 to the two rape charges as well as a misdemeanor charge for interference with communications. 

With a trial date originally set for April 2023, it was delayed until July at the request of Carcoana and his defense attorney.

Carcoana’s attorney filed another motion for continuance of jury trial, citing poor health and additional trials. 

In February of 2024, Carcoana pled guilty to one of the rape charges, with the prosecution dropping the remaining charges. According to Tracy, it is normal for a defendant to plead not guilty at arraignment and later accept a plea deal rather than go to trial.

Carcoana received a six-month incarceration sentence. While convicted in Clay County, Carcoana served his sentence at the Union County Jail in Elk Point. 

We had been housing him at Clay County expense in the Union County jail since about the third day of his sentence, and so then ICE picked him up from the Union County Jail,” Howe said.

Howe says that all inmates are transferred to other facilities since the Clay County Jail only holds individuals for three days.

While Carcoana is likely barred for life from returning to the United States, the ordeal will live on with the victim.

“The most challenging aspect of this case is the retraumatization that our criminal justice system puts a victim through,” Tracy said.

“It’s truly a necessary evil that we then put a victim through over and over again. We compel them to relive their trauma on the terms of the system and the terms of the defendant.”

Tracy says she is glad to see this case come to an end.

“It felt rewarding to watch this young woman who had been put through hell come out on the other side with some closure,” Tracy said.