Border Patrol agent vindicated

Six years after his felony conviction for striking an illegal alien who resisted arrest, Border Patrol Agent David Sipe has been vindicated by an administrative law ruling, reports WND columnist Jerome Corsi, who notes similarities to the current cases of the "Texas 3."

Sipe was convicted in 2001 of criminal felony charges for striking illegal alien coyote Jose Guevara on the back of his head.

Anna Love, an administrative judge with the Dallas Region of the Merit Systems Protection Board, ordered Sipe reinstated June 13 to his former Border Patrol position, with full back-salary to April 21, 2001, the date the Border Patrol removed him and suspended his pay.

The "Texas 3" are Ignacio Ramos, Jose Compean and Gil Hernandez. Ramos and Compean are in federal prison serving 11- and 12-year sentences for their actions in the shooting of a drug smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila-Aldrete, as he fled back to Mexico after driving across the border with 742 pounds of marijuana in February 2005. U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton gave the smuggler immunity to serve as the government's star witness and testify against the border agents. While under immunity, the smuggler was caught in another drug delivery, but the judge sealed that information from the jury. Hernandez was convicted of violating the civil rights of two illegal aliens injured from shell fragments that struck them as the officer shot at the tires of a van in which they escaped from a routine traffic stop. The van driver had tried to run over Hernandez.

Jack Lamar Wolfe, Sipe's attorney in McAllen, Texas, told Corsi in a telephone interview Sipe finally has received justice.

"Too bad it took seven years," Wolfe said. "The government destroyed Sipe's family and ruined his career. All Sipe ever wanted to be was a Border Patrol agent."

To win acquittal, Sipe spent his entire life savings and went bankrupt. His wife divorced him, and he has been forced to move in with Wolfe.

Corsi says Sipe's case demonstrates the extent to which the Department of Justice will go to protect and reward a criminal illegal alien whose testimony is necessary to prosecute a Border Patrol agent.

At his new trial, Wolfe was allowed to tell the jury the criminal background of the witness and introduce a co-worker's testimony favorable to Sipe.

Wolfe also was allowed at the retrial to present evidence about the benefits and reimbursements the prosecutors had extended to Guevara and the other illegal alien witnesses who gave testimony at Sipe's first trial.

In Sipe's case, the government made a "sweetheart" deal with Guevara, giving him travel expenses, witness fees, free telephone use and a border crossing permit. Guevara also received a Social Security card and a driver's license, all in return for his testimony against Sipe.

"The federal prosecutors in the Sipe case refused to prosecute Guevara when he was apprehended a second time, caught for transporting illegal aliens by automobile," Wolfe told WND, just as Department of Homeland Security and Drug Enforcement Agency investigative reports suggest prosecutors failed to prosecute a second offense by Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, the drug smuggler shot at by Ramos and Compean.

In Sipe's case, Wolfe maintained that government prosecutors lied about evidence and withheld important documents from the defense. WND has reported that Mary Stillinger, defense counsel for Ramos, never saw a Feb. 15, 2005, DHS investigative report which identified there were seven other Border Patrol agents plus two supervisors on the scene of the Ramos and Compean incident.

The ruling by the judge, etc. are a great read for insight on how our justice department handles these matters. ---------------- Here's a snip.

The Judge noted before granting the motion that he had never before in his twenty years on the bench ordered a new trial. Yet he sat through the trial, learned of the government's repeated nondisclosures and misrepresentations, and was troubled. While many of these nondisclosures do not satisfy Brady's rigid materiality standard, they nonetheless convinced the district court that Sipe did not receive a fair trial.

http://www.romingerlegal.com/fifthcircuit/opinions/03-40657-CR0.wpd.html

In an oral ruling from the bench, he noted that in his twenty plus years on the bench, he had never granted a Rule 33 motion. He explained: I don't . . . make this decision lightly. It is the Court's view that in the interest of justice, [Sipe's motion for a new trial] should be granted. And also there is a reasonable probability that had the evidence been disclosed to the Defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different . . . . And that's the standards -- those are the standards the Court has used here.

Sipe moved for the production of the government's entire investigative file. After reviewing the material produced, Sipe identified four additional pieces of exculpatory or impeachment information that the government had failed to provide. First, Sipe discovered that the government had taken several photographs of the arrest scene. Guevara himself is in the photographs, apparently posing to demonstrate where he was located in the reeds when Sipe struck him.

Second, Sipe learned that Alexander Murillo, one of the government's witnesses, had a criminal history. Specifically, Murillo had been charged in the past with filing a false police report, theft, and harassment, although there had been no convictions. Third, Sipe learned that the government interviewed one Herica Rodriguez before trial. Rodriguez, one of Sipe's fellow EMT students, told government investigators that Sipe was a "nice person" and that she did not hear him make any statements suggesting that he disliked or disrespected aliens.

Finally, despite the government's written assurance to the defense that the only benefit given to the testifying aliens was permission to remain and work in the United States pending trial, Sipe learned that the aliens received numerous other benefits from the prosecutors. For example, they were given Social Security cards, paid witness and travel fees, allowed to travel to and from Mexico to visit family, permitted to travel to North Carolina to work, and allowed to use government phones to contact relatives in Mexico. ---------------- Prosecuting attorney: R. ALEXANDER ACOSTA

Hispanic Business - R. Alexander Acosta, influential Hispanic for 2004

Mr. Acosta is the first Hispanic to serve as assistant attorney general. Before joining the Justice Department, he served as a member of the National Labor Relations Board, the principal federal agency for regulating labor unions. He is the 2003 recipient of the Mexican-American Legal Defense & Education Fund's Excellence in Government Service Award and the D.C. Hispanic Bar Association's Hugh A. Johnson Jr. Memorial Award.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=Pk0&q=R.+ALEXANDER+ACOSTA+&btnG=Search Prior to his appointment as United States Attorney, Mr. Acosta was nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate to serve as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. Mr. Acosta was the first Hispanic to serve as an Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice. The Civil Rights Division is responsible for enforcing federal civil rights statutes, including those statutes that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, handicap, religion, and national origin in education, employment, credit, housing, public accommodations and facilities, voting, and certain federally funded and conducted programs. Mr. Acosta had also served as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division. [snip]

Glenn Beck had another agent on yesterday, Gary Brugman. This is a sad tale!

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0706/18/gb.01.html

[snip]

PAGLIARULO: When the guy didn`t listen to you and wouldn`t get back on the ground and you used your foot, was that you being unreasonable or was that the training working again?

No, not at all, sir. That was training I received at the federal law enforcement training center, and it was just a front kick. I just pushed him on the ground with the bottom of my foot.

PAGLIARULO: OK, and that`s your job. You were charged with protecting the border, protecting me and my family, you and your family, and all of America from people coming here and breaking the laws that are on the books, yes?

BRUGMAN: Correct.

PAGLIARULO: OK. So when this goes down, and you find out you`re going to be charged, what goes through your head? Did you talk to your supervisor? Did you talk to your training personnel? Who did you talk to? Who did you call and say, “This is crazy. These guys think they`re going to charge me with a crime here”?

BRUGMAN: Well, Joe, I talked to everybody I could, my supervisors, my sector chief, everybody. Nobody knew. Nobody could tell me what it was about, because it was the office of the inspector general that was investigating me. And I went to my congressman`s office at the time, which was Henry Bonilla, and he told me that he doesn`t get involved in anything judicial like that.

PAGLIARULO: OK. So you`re doing your job, you`re doing the job the best way you can, and this is a job that you loved, right?

BRUGMAN: Oh, I loved the job, yes.

PAGLIARULO: Now, you`ve gone to prison now — by the way, because of the testimony of the guy that you were using your training on, and also another criminal, right?

BRUGMAN: Correct, yes. They ridded a narcotics smuggler that I arrested six weeks later in a totally separate incident. They ridded him out of prison to come testify against me.

PAGLIARULO: Now, what kind of deal was made by the drug dealer?

BRUGMAN: Nobody knows.

PAGLIARULO: Why not?

BRUGMAN: Because they sealed all his records.

Acosta has an interesting background. Here’s a bit.

http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/739

PR calls for Alexander Acosta- Interim Attorney for Southern FL to step down : gave DOJ funding to terror supporting Musim group

July 4, 2005

OFFICIAL FROM JUSTICE DEPT. INITIATED GRANT TO TERROR SUPPORTING GROUP

AAH SAYS ACOSTA HAS “NO CHOICE” BUT TO RESIGN

(Coral Springs, FL) On February 7, 2005, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the availability of funds in the form of outreach grants for “public education efforts regarding immigration-related employment discrimination.” One of the grants was given to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), a group with a long history of support for overseas Islamic terrorist organizations that receives millions of dollars from Wahhabists in Saudi Arabia.

Yesterday, Chairman of Americans Against Hate (AAH), Joe Kaufman, contacted the Justice Department to infer about how the grant got into the hands of ADC. Kaufman spoke with Acting Public Affairs Specialist to the DOJ’s Office of Special Counsel for Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC), Lilia Irizarry, who stated that the grant was initiated by none other than DOJ official Rene Alexander Acosta.

Acosta had just been presented with ADC’s 2005 ‘Friend in Government’ Award in May, just one month prior to ADC announcing on its website that it had received the grant.

[snip]

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