Posted on 01/23/2007 2:15:57 AM PST by Man50D
Imprisoned former Border Patrol agent Ignacio Ramos not only is being held in prison for trying to halt a fleeing drug smuggler, he's being held in solitary confinement treated as if he were Charles Manson, a relative told WND in an exclusive interview.
Joe Loya, Ramos' father-in-law, told WND that Ramos is being held in conditions usually reserved for extraordinarily dangerous or trouble-making inmates.
"They have Ignacio in a 6 foot by 12 foot cell," Loya told WND in a telephone interview from El Paso. "There are no bars, just a steel door, and no window. He has no television and nothing to do. He is fed in his cell and let out only for one hour after 23 hours in the cell. He is then taken to a room with a television where he is allowed to watch the TV for an hour before he is returned to solitary confinement."
Loya said his daughter met with her husband for an hour on Friday.
"Ignacio was heavily shackled," Loya said, "and he could barely hold the telephone to speak."
Loya explained that his daughter met with her husband in the prison in a room where they were separated by a glass barrier.
"It was just like Ignacio was Charlie Manson," Loya explained. "My daughter couldn't believe how her husband was being treated."
Loya told WND that the family believes that the federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, introduced into the trial inaccurate or incomplete testimony provided by the drug dealer, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, as well as from other Border Patrol agents who the federal prosecutors had pressured prior to the trial.
"I can't believe how Ignacio is being treated," Loya told WND. "He has been a federal agent for years and he has been involved in many drug busts. I am convinced that the U.S. attorney has a grudge against my son-in-law and I cannot believe how mean and determined Johnny Sutton has been to see my son imprisoned for doing nothing more than trying to stop a drug smuggler he and Jose Compean believed was armed and dangerous."
Loya explained to WND that Aldrete-Davila had beaten and cut Compean in the struggle that occurred in the ditch as Aldrete-Davila was trying to escape.
"The prosecutors say that Compean was going to beat Aldrete-Davila with his shotgun. How could that be? Aldrete-Davila is over six feet tall and Compean is about five feet five inches. Compean would have been afraid that Aldrete-Davila would have taken the shotgun from him and beat him or shot him with it. The story at the trial that the prosecutors offered the jury didn’t make any sense."
Loya told WND that he had sat through the entire trial. A complete transcript of the trial is not yet available and Loya told WND that the U.S. attorney's office told him that the trial transcript would cost $3 per page. "At over 3,000 pages, that means we have to come up with $9,000 just to get a copy of the transcript. And besides, it isn't available yet and the prosecutors' office can’t tell us when it will be available."
Ramos and Compean are in federal prison today, after they were ordered to jail by U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Cordone. Cordone dismissed the defense argument that the two Border Patrol were no "flight risk" while they were waiting appeal. Judge Compean also denied Ramos and Compean's request for a new trial after there were reports that three jurors said they were coerced to vote guilty.
The White House to date has declined to intervene, and the talking points continue to stress themes articulated by Sutton, who in an exclusive interview last week with WND claimed the two agents "shot 15 times at an unarmed, fleeing man," after which the agents "decided to lie about it, cover it up, destroy the evidence, pick up all the shell casings and throw them away where we couldn't find them, destroy the crime scene and then file a false report."
Has it occurred to Joe that they're taking the action to protect Ramos' life?
I think it's standard practice to hold new prisoners in solitary confinement. Suicide prevention and new prisoner protection is what I've been told.
"run of the mill rapists"
Not true. I hear they just want to deport an ILLEGAL child molester. Citizens here have NO legal rights compared to our south of the border neighbors.
Has he even gone through the inmate classification process yet?
So explain the heavy shackles and the schedule. Explain the lack of exercise.
There's a rumor that a pardon is in the works. Someone could be leaning on them to drop appeals and accept a pardon. If they accept a pardon, they'll always be pardoned ex-convicts, even if their rights are restored. Capiche?
This is about more than who shot at whom, or who ran from whom. Something really stinks here, and the fact that these guys are being leaned on in prison is a convincing whiff.
Same thing.
I think the entire reception phase lasts from 2 weeks to a month. And that is with a gradually increasing degree of "freedom."
If we had a prisons expert here, we could answer the question.
Make no mistake, I think those guys are unjustly imprisoned and deserve a pardon.
Just once, I'd like to see a prosecutor offer a LEO a deal to testify against a perp who accused the LEO of something. How come the prosecutor didn't offer these BP agents a deal, to testify against the smuggler? World upside down.
You have to remember that this is "our" Justice Department, meaning one under a conservative president.
*ANY* kind of law enforcement officer will not last behind bars. Their only hope is solitary confinement.
That would have required L - O - G - I - C.
I'm way too pissed to properly respond at this time.
Not on immigration, he isn't. Nor on the subject of Mexico more generally.
Remember, just before 9/11, Dubya was calling the President of Mexico our "new best friend," and the Canadians were asking, editorially, "hey, what are we -- chopped liver?"
Then the sky turned black with smoke, Presidente Fox remembered something important he had to attend to back at his estancia, and for "best friends" we had to settle for whoever showed up when we needed them.
So who showed up in the gallery of the U.S. House of Representatives when President Bush made his post-9/11 address to the Congress? It was Prime Minister Blair, his pockets bulging with old Royal Navy brass knuckles. Tony Blair ran toward trouble and caught our back, when other "friends" walked away. Remember that, as we discuss Mexico and Dubya's affinity for the Mexicans.
I disagree. If the BP agents are innocent, they deserve nothing less than full exoneration, restoration to their duties, and back pay, plus an emolument for having stood up to malicious prosecution.
And let's not forget -- if they're innocent, then someone else needs to be in those cells. Starting with that roach, the drug smuggler Aldrete-Davila, and possibly extending to the U.S. Attorney's office.
If this all starts to unravel and there's a stink, look for Aldrete-Davila to turn up dead or "disappeared".
I think they should go after what works.
If it's a pardon that will work, then that's what they should go for.
No sense chasing the unlikely.
Get free first. Then fight the other stuff.
You've seen this regarding our good man Johnny Sutton :
http://www.narconews.com/Issue38/article1374.html
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