Delay in border case questioned
Two U.S. Border Patrol agents were indicted two months after shooting a drug-smuggling suspect as he fled back into Mexico, but it took the Justice Department more than two years to bring charges against the suspect, and the head of the National Border Patrol Council wants to know why.
"The most logical explanation is that the prompt arrest of the drug smuggler would have destroyed U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's chances of successfully prosecuting the two Border Patrol agents," said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents all 12,000 of the agency's nonsupervisory agents.
"No jury would have believed the perjured testimony of a professional drug smuggler," said Mr. Bonner, a 27-year Border Patrol veteran.
Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, 27, an admitted Mexican drug smuggler, was arrested Nov. 15 by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents at the Ysleta Port of Entry in El Paso, Texas, on a federal grand jury indictment charging him with conspiracy and possession with the intent to distribute marijuana.
The indictment said Mr. Aldrete-Davila conspired with Cipriano Ortiz Hernandez, beginning in June 2005, to import and distribute marijuana from Mexico in the U.S. If convicted at a trial that has not been scheduled, he faces up to 40 years in prison and a $2 million fine.
Mr. Aldrete-Davila first came to the attention of federal authorities after he was shot in the buttocks on Feb. 17, 2005, by Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean when he refused their orders to stop, abandoned a van containing 783 pounds of marijuana and ran to Mexico.
Ramos, 37, and Compean, 28, were indicted by a federal grand jury in El Paso on April 13, 2005. Convicted after a jury trial, they were sentenced in October 2006 to 11- and 12-year prison terms, respectively, for causing serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence and for a civil rights violation.
After his successful escape, Mr. Aldrete-Davila was located in Mexico by a Homeland Security investigator and given immunity to testify against the two agents. The convictions are under appeal and a hearing is scheduled for next month
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