Posted on 02/09/2007 2:09:08 AM PST by ovrtaxt
INVASION USA
Border-agent investigator had tie to smuggler
Played major role in Ramos-Compean case but name blacked out in report
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
According to official documents in WND's possession, a Department of Homeland Security agent played a major role in managing the drug smuggler and conducting the field investigation in the incident that landed Border Patrol officers Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean in federal prison for more than a decade.
Yet, in the heavily redacted 77-page DHS report submitted to Congress Wednesday there is no explicit discussion of the role DHS Special Agent Christopher Sanchez played in the case.
Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, yesterday called for the resignation of four DHS investigators, including Assistant Inspector General Elizabeth Redman, after DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner testified under oath his deputies had lied to Congress about non-existent reports that were supposed to have established Ramos and Compean as rogue cops who wanted to "shoot some Mexicans."
 Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila |
WND has obtained a copy of the government-issued border pass given to Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, the drug smuggler granted immunity to testify against Ramos and Compean. The border pass allowed multiple entries to the U.S. and carried the signature and badge number of Sanchez.
The border pass appears to have been issued March 16, 2005, the day Sanchez brought Aldrete-Davila to William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, to have a bullet removed from his right thigh.
"Aldrete-Davila was issued what amounts to a 'Gold Elite' border pass," Andy Ramirez, chairman of the Friends of the Border Patrol, told WND. "With the stamp for multiple entries into the United States, Aldrete-Davila didn't have to run the back roads as a drug smuggler any more. He could tell his drug bosses in Mexico that he could drive their loads right through border crossing points without much worry."
WND previously reported Aldrete-Davila was implicated in a second drug bust in October 2005, subsequent to the Feb. 17, 2005 incident with Ramos and Compean in which he abandoned a 1989 Ford Econoline containing 743 pounds of marijuana driven across the border from Mexico.
"With that border pass, Aldrete-Davila had the green light," Ramirez told WND. "He might have been indicted if the vehicle he drove in October 2005 with 1,000 pounds of dope was identified back to a border-crossing photograph, but he probably never had to be arrested."
The prosecutor of Ramos and Compean, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, has told WND that Aldrete-Davila was never arrested a second time for a drug offense in October 2005, but Sutton has never denied the smuggler was indicted for such an offense.
Medical records obtained by WND clearly establish the bullet wounds suffered by Aldrete-Davila involved a lateral wound to the left buttocks, not a "shot in the back" as repeatedly claimed by Sutton.
The medical records document that March 16, 2005, Dr. Winston Marne removed a large bullet fragment from Aldrete-Davila's right thigh. The records indicate bullet fragments were found in Aldrete-Davila's pelvis but not removed. The path of the bullet is clearly described as entering in the left side of the left buttocks, traversing the groin area, and lodging in the right thigh.
The records also indicate reconstructive surgery was performed on Aldrete-Davila the same day at the army hospital. Damage to the urethra required a catheter to be inserted. Aldrete-Davila was placed under anesthetics for the operation and was heavily sedated for pain.
The drug smuggler was released from the army hospital the same day and given to the protective custody of Sanchez, who also took with him the bullet fragment removed from Aldrete-Davila's thigh.
WND has learned Aldrete-Davila spent the night of March 16, 2005, at the home of Sanchez.
"Christopher Sanchez shows up again with the shell fragments from Aldrete-Davila's body," Ramirez pointed out to WND. "Sanchez was evidently Aldrete-Davila's handler and from the looks of it, he did a good job. Taking that bullet home broke the chain of evidence. From there on, what good would a report be even if it established the bullet was fired from Ramos' gun?"
WND previously reported that the weapons identifications ballistics analysis performed by the Texas Department of Public Safety on the bullet fragment held by Sanchez did not match the bullet to the weapons fired Feb. 17, 2005 by Ramos or Compean.
March 16, 2005, was also the date "Osvaldo" Aldrete-Davila signed and accepted his offer of immunity from Sutton's office, supposedly signed before the medical operation was performed and the border pass issued. There is no time stamp noted on the immunity document nor mention of the location where the document was signed.
As WND reported, Sanchez grew up with Aldrete-Davila in Mexico, and the drug dealer's identity was first discovered through these family connections.
WND repeatedly has noted many of the DHS investigative reports were filed by Sanchez, who appears to have played a major role in the DHS field investigation.
"There was no reason to have redacted Christopher Sanchez's name from the report," Ramirez told WND. "Sanchez was a DHS special agent. But everywhere you look, Sanchez shows up playing a role shepherding the drug dealer around and framing the evidence that ended up being used by Johnny Sutton to put Ramos and Compean in prison for 11 and 12 years respectively."
Yep.
Good on ya! I likes it.
BUMP
ROFL! McCarthy? Facts? Oxymoron.
Please add me to your ping list.
These border agents DO NOT deserve jail time, and you should not waste a minute of your time feeling sorry for the drug smugglers.
Thank you. I've a piece or two of poetry floating around FR.
How's about collecting it on your homepage?
Freepers are so talented! :-)
So Tom, there's nothing in this case that strikes you as a bit odd?
How does WND get a partial snippet of a transcript that the congress can't get?
I've wondered if the transcript was being held NOT by those who want the BP agents in jail, but rather by sympathetic people who realise it will sink their case. This would explain the push to get a pardon before the transcript is out -- once a pardon is issued, it won't matter if the transcript shows they were propertly convicted.
The fact that WND has a small part of the transcript that they can twist to be helpful to the agents backs up this theory, which is of course conjecture on my part.
As to the cell phone, I don't know. I would point out that all the fingerprints in the world don't do a thing for you if you don't have the perp's fingerprints to match with the ones lifted at the scene. They had 8 sets of fingerprints in the Van, but again with the two agents saying they couldn't identify the smuggler, nobody in the BP agency ordered up any fingerprints. The testimony that he left a cell phone in the car was covered under the immunity agreement, of course.
They probably didn't have the smuggler's prints on file to test until after he was granted immunity. Without his immunity, they wouldn't have access to his fingers; no way mexico was going to give them access based on hearsay of a "mother told a mother" variety.
I would be very interested in whether fingerprints were ever run on the cell phone, and what was found. I'd also be interested in knowing if, even if they had his fingerprints on file) simply having a cell phone with fingerprints in the same car as the drugs would be enough to get an extradition notice. Without eyewitness identification of the smuggler as the man seen running from the van, he could argue that the cell phone was left at another time.
If Compean and Ramos had sat down and done a drawing of the smuggler, they might have had evidence to use against him, I don't know.
He was never getting tried for the drugs. The only way we could ever try him for the drugs is if he testified against himself. THere is nothing contradictory about those two statements, although my "never" obviously didn't include him being stupid enough to confess to the crime by mistake.
Of course he did not "HAVE" to prosecute (well, I don't know if "of course" is the correct word -- I don't think prosecuters have the absolute authority to ignore criminal wrongdoing). What I am saying is that it is perfectly reasonable and correct for him to have done so.
Yes, we don't know exactly (or more correctly, I don't know exactly, and I'm trying not to state as facts things I'm not sure of).
We know Sutton said there was no matches, but we don't know if that means before immunity or includes the time after immunity.
I would presume that the U.S. government did not have a mexican citizen's prints on file, given there is no record of him ever being picked up before on any crime. Either that, or they DID have his prints but they didn't match the 8 sets found. I don't know which is the case, I know they didn't have a match, and that statement could cover both cases.
Does anybody have information on whether a match was ever sought? At one point someone on the defense suggested there was question whether the smuggler was even THERE at the time of the shooting, but I don't think that was a credible defender, just one of the many theories thrown out.
Yes, he stipulated. That's been reported here. Don't ask me WHY he did so, but if you don't believe me, ping one of the defenders and ask, they'll tell you the same thing.
Isn't that amazing. The one thing that the prosecutor gets their lawyer to stipulate to turns out to be a lie --- or atleast a huge questionmark. No doubt Johnny Sutton pushed for this stipulation because he knew that if he had to prove it, then his whole case would fall apart just like the bullet did.
Does this tell you something about Johnny Sutton's modus operandi as a prosecuting attorney. He has to stack the deck and withhold evidence and present lies to a jury in order to get his convictions. We need to look at all of his cases now --- not just this one.
Yet he is willing time and time again to give guy like Aldrete-Davila the benefit of the doubt.
It's true, that's probably why they stipulated it. Compean got 11 years, and he didn't hit the guy at all, so the case hardly hinged on whether Ramos was a good shot or not.
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