Agent testifies that driver in bus accident wasn't alone (MN Illegal Update)

StarTribune ^ | 5/15/08 | PAM LOUWAGIE

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

A federal agent testified this morning that he has learned since the fatal Cottonwood, Minn., school bus crash that the woman accused of causing the accident was not alone in her van.

Olga Franco's boyfriend was with her in the van at the time of the Feb. 19 crash, said Jeremy Christenson, a special agent with Immigration, Customs and Enforcement. Four schoolchildren died in the accident.

Christenson said he learned this through interviews he conducted.

"I did learn that, yes," Christenson said under cross-examination from Franco's attorney Manuel Guerrero.

Guerrero asked the court to depose three witnesses so he could preserve their testimony if they’re not available at trial.

He told the judge a witness has been identified “who carried him [Franco’s boyfriend] away from the scene of the accident.”

The other two witnesses said they saw a man running away from the scene of the accident.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Curiouser and curiouser......

[Anonymous Rex]

Who cares, string them both up.

[Anonymous Rex]

P.S. Wasn’t she pried from behind the steering wheel with the jaws of life?

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Yep....

[Anonymous Rex]

That’s what I thought. Kind of hard to argue that someone else was driving when the someone else was seen running away and you’re the only one left pinned behind the steering wheel when the rescue crews show up.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Well, everything else about her is a lie, so she figured it just might work one more time......

[org.whodat]

Just a few days back, this POS, woman's attorney was trying to say, even thought they had to cut her out of the car, she wasn't driving and her boy fiend/live in was driving. Makes no difference, give her life.

[gubamyster]

ping

[contemplator]

Just a few days back, this POS, woman's attorney was trying to say, even thought they had to cut her out of the car, she wasn't driving and her boy fiend/live in was driving. Makes no difference, give her life.

WTH is wrong with you? It makes all the difference in the world. You cant hold the passenger accountable for an accident unless it can be proven that they caused it or was in some way accountable. At the very least however; the one who wasn't driving needs to be sent back to their country of origin. I am appalled by the 'catch and release' policies of most local law enforcement organizations who hide behind a so-called lack of jurisdiction as if they are only being paid to enforce certain laws and not others. They should hold them and turn them over to INS for processing.

[Balding_Eagle]

You cant hold the passenger accountable for an accident unless it can be proven that they caused it or was in some way accountable

don't know about MN, but the passenger very well could, and should be, charged with Capital Murder.

[org.whodat]

WTH is wrong with you?

That depends upon your definition of "WTH". The boy friend, if you had been keeping up with this story, cut out the day it happened and like all illegals no one knows where he is. But she was under the steering wheel and trapped there when she was cut out, she was driving and had been in an accident before.

Next in the original story they said she and he had family members, More illegals, living in the area and ICE hasn't done **it about it.

[CatherinePPP]

You cant hold the passenger accountable for an accident

Well at the very least he ran away from the scene of the accident, leaving behind his injured girlfriend and four children who died. That's a crime even if she was the one driving.

Plus from that article it looks like not only are they illegals, but they also are charged with identity theft for stealing the ID's of a pair of legal immigrants. Despicable! I wonder if those honest immigrants got deported in the thieves place.

[Rick.Donaldson]

I think what might be at issue here is that perhaps the other party CAUSED the accident and she is actually “not at fault” in some way.

[contemplator]

That's a crime even if she was the one driving.

Let's assume that she drove and he was the passenger. Is life or stringing him up as others have suggested in this thread the appropriate response? Were he not an illegal alien would people be reacting so strongly? Fleeing the scene of an accident is indeed a crime, does it call for the death penalty? Does crossing the border illegally call for the death penalty? Does forging a drivers license or SSN card call for the death penalty? What is the penalty to be for simply being the passenger in a car where the driver commits manslaughter(assuming he did not cause the accident somehow)? Is it death? I am looking at these as being seperate crimes with the punishment for each one needing to be handled individually.

What I am questioning overall is what I consider to be a mob mentality similar to what you might see in a Hollywood western where they lay siege to the jail demanding that the prisoner be dragged out and hung without a trial.

[raybbr]

What I am questioning overall is what I consider to be a mob mentality similar to what you might see in a Hollywood western where they lay siege to the jail demanding that the prisoner be dragged out and hung without a trial.

I'm starting to think that that is the only way that the govt. will change their laissez faire method of dealing with the invasion taking place.

[CatherinePPP]

That is true, the death penalty is not appropriate here.

Still, I certainly hope I would also be outraged by an American couple who stole people’s identities, drove recklessly into a bus full of schoolchildren and tried to run away from the crime scene and blame each other for it. It’s terrible behavior no matter who did it. Scamming the immigration system is just one more thing in the list of immoral things they did.

If it was a simple accident and the couple seemed sorry, for example if a kid on a bike pulled out in front of their car and they hit him and the woman ran to call the ambulance while the man tried to perform CPR, then I think there wouldnt be so much bad feelings about it. This woman acts like she is the victim here and the man still is hiding from the law.

[Tspud1]

It is the lawyers job to try to get her off of this charge. He’s had some time to cook up this story and to find someone to be a witness. Now much later, the only people to see the MISSING boyfriend are probably ILLEGALS themselves. Why else would they say “if they’re not available at trial.” & “The witness was a co-worker of Franco’s boyfriend, but did not witness the accident” How convenient. My bet is that they know the perp and are willing to say anything to get her off with as light a sentence as possible. The impact to turn over a school bus wouldn’t be something most would be able to run from. Since children died, why didn’t these witnesses come forward right away? Where did the co-worker take the boyfriend? Will the co-worker now face any charges since homicide is involved? The other witnesses saw a man running from the scene. How would they know if it was the boyfriend?
Remember telling lies comes very easy to these ILLEGALS as her story and names prove. Since she lied before, the lawyers will be able to ask that old stand by in court, Were You Lying Then or Are You Lying Now?