For some reason, the article doesn't go into particulars about those charges.
Diaz was tried in September 2010, but the case ended in a mistrial. The DOJ tried the case again in February 2011 and this time they got their conviction, even though federal agent witnesses admitted they had lied to a grand jury. The judge did not allow the fact that they had committed perjury into the second trial.
By their accounts, Agent Jesus Enrique Diaz Jr., a husband and father with seven years on the job, tortured a 16-year-old drug smuggler two years ago by wrenching his handcuffed arms upward as he pressed a knee into his back. In an effort to make the boy reveal where he had hidden marijuana bundles near the Rio Grande, Diaz also kicked him and dropped him face-first on the ground, agents testified.BTW, the mistrial was not, as implied, because of a hung jury or doubt as to a conviction:No one stopped the alleged assault as the 110-pound juvenile screamed, but some agents talked afterward about the "disgust" they felt and reported it. "I knew that what he was doing was wrong," Agent Gabriel Lerma testified.
Diaz denies the allegations — he is also charged with lying to investigators — and the case ended in mistrial Thursday because a juror was taking notes in violation of the judge's instruction. A retrial is planned, and Diaz remains on unpaid suspension.
I have no idea who is telling the truth here -- of course, we haven't even been told what the pro-Diaz side is in this article, so it was pretty much just a "hey, this is horrible, believe me" article.
If this is a typical discussion, people will claim that we need to back our border patrol agents, while also claiming that any border patrol agent who testified against Diaz is bad. I don't know which border patrol agents to believe.
If the LA Times story is to be believed, there are at least some BP agents who are doing bad things:
In the last 18 months, five Border Patrol agents have been accused or convicted of sex crimes, including one agent who pleaded guilty in January to raping a woman while off duty, and another who is accused of sexually assaulting a migrant while her young children were nearby in a car.
It's difficult to search for information on these cases once the pro-border-patrol-enforcement crowd gets a hold of the stories, since they have dozens of blogs and they all post the same stories and so it can take pages of searching in google to find some local news information.
It would be nice if someone had written up a daily synopsis of the trial, or at least had a brief explaining what Diaz is claiming.
Here's the last bit from the LA Times story:
The teenage alleged victim in the Diaz case testified that he was paid $250 to smuggle a backpack filled with marijuana over the Rio Grande into Eagle Pass, Texas, on Oct. 16, 2008. The teen initially denied carrying drugs.
...
The teen's hands were cuffed behind his back and he was face down in the grass when Diaz began forcing his arms up at a 90-degree angle to his back, agents said. They said the boy made no attempt to flee or resist."You could tell he was in pain. He was screaming," Lerma testified.
Court records in the case say Diaz was accused of abusing a detainee in 2005, though they don't say what came of the accusation.
It does bother me that the article in this thread dismisses the "pulling by the handcuffs" by claiming that method is used to get guys into the trucks, without ever saying that Diaz claimed that was why he did it. That suggests to me that Dias did NOT make such a claim, which would mean the author of the story is trying to paint a false picture -- which suggests the information isn't reliable.