João Ferreira, 59, a Portuguese national with a green card, was taken into custody early Tuesday morning in Dartmouth while driving to a landscaping job in New Bedford, along with a Brazilian man traveling with him. Ferreira had a 1992 case involving indecent assault and exposure charges that was continued without a finding and later closed, and a 2009 conviction for assault with a dangerous weapon resulting in probation. In 2019, Customs and Border Protection stopped him at Logan Airport and began removal proceedings citing a crime of moral turpitude; he later filed a motion for a new trial arguing he had not been properly informed of his rights, but court records show no resolution to that motion.