Dear Editor:
I doubt it seriously if Mr. Gabler will get a response from our senators. Here is why. Both our U.S. senators back the President’s three-times-defeated McCain-Kennedy Amnesty Bill (amnesty and path to citizenship for illegal aliens), despite all their deliberate spin to the contrary. Both are in the pockets of big business and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for the sake of cheap labor. Their staffs are obviously programmed to act as they did. So why should the senators be interested to stand up for border agents Ramos and Compean who did their duty to prevent drug smugglers and/or illegal aliens to cross our borders, and ask GW to pardon these good men? To make matters worse, Johnny Sutton, who lied and deliberately withheld evidence during the border agents’ trials, is a personal friend of the president. The trial was based on the sole testimony of a known drug smuggler who is now finally sentenced to jail. Sutton is the only one who should be jailed, not the border agents! Unfortunately, Washington nowadays is a circus with the clowns in charge.
Our state senator, in a speech a few months ago, stated that he had procured millions of dollars for border security and schools. After the meeting, I told him that his statement was just a half-truth, because I had a 2007 video tape in which he stated that he would not spend a penny going after illegal aliens; the money was only for drug interception.
He also stated that children from illegal aliens had the right to be educated in the U.S. at our expense. I disagreed and he kind of shouted: “Don’t believe the bull from former Sen. Galloway.” My response: Senator, the bull originates from you, not from Sen. Galloway.
A.N.M. Geldens
Kingwood
Showing posts with label US Attorney Johnny Sutton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US Attorney Johnny Sutton. Show all posts
August 19, 2008
July 9, 2008
El Paso Border Patrol agent pleads guilty to immigrant smuggling
Times staff report
Article Launched: 07/09/2008 01:23:44 PM MDT
U.S. Border Patrol agent Jesus Miguel Huizar faces five years in federal prison after pleading guilty Wednesday morning to conspiracy to smuggle, transport and harbor undocumented immigrants and conspiracy to commit money laundering, United States Attorney Johnny Sutton announced.
Appearing before United States District Judge David Briones, Huizar admitted that from January 2005 to present he conspired to smuggle over 100 undocumented immigrants into the United States from Mexico. Specifically, Huizar was paid a portion of the smuggling fees, approximately $350 per person, to facilitate the transportation of undocumented immigrants through the interior Border Patrol checkpoints in New Mexico, Sutton said in a news release
Huizar agreed to forfeit to the government a house he owned at 9072 Geranium in El Paso, used by the organization as a safe house. He also agreed to pay a monetary judgement in the amount of $500,000.
A trial date for Huizar's co-defendants - El Paso resident Rosa Isela Escajeda, 46, and Chihuahua, Mexico residents Emeterio Sigala-Favela, 37, and Luis Carlos Chacon-Rubio, 32 - has yet to be scheduled. If convicted, each faces up to ten years in federal prison.
Article Launched: 07/09/2008 01:23:44 PM MDT
U.S. Border Patrol agent Jesus Miguel Huizar faces five years in federal prison after pleading guilty Wednesday morning to conspiracy to smuggle, transport and harbor undocumented immigrants and conspiracy to commit money laundering, United States Attorney Johnny Sutton announced.
Appearing before United States District Judge David Briones, Huizar admitted that from January 2005 to present he conspired to smuggle over 100 undocumented immigrants into the United States from Mexico. Specifically, Huizar was paid a portion of the smuggling fees, approximately $350 per person, to facilitate the transportation of undocumented immigrants through the interior Border Patrol checkpoints in New Mexico, Sutton said in a news release
Huizar agreed to forfeit to the government a house he owned at 9072 Geranium in El Paso, used by the organization as a safe house. He also agreed to pay a monetary judgement in the amount of $500,000.
A trial date for Huizar's co-defendants - El Paso resident Rosa Isela Escajeda, 46, and Chihuahua, Mexico residents Emeterio Sigala-Favela, 37, and Luis Carlos Chacon-Rubio, 32 - has yet to be scheduled. If convicted, each faces up to ten years in federal prison.
June 19, 2008
Federal prosecutions of immigrants surge
Federal prosecutions of immigrants surge
Web Posted: 06/17/2008 10:23 PM CDT
By Hernán Rozemberg
Express-News
An experimental immigration enforcement program in South Texas rolled out less than three years ago — and now duplicated elsewhere — is prompting a record-setting count of federal prosecutions of first-time unauthorized border crossers, according to a report released Tuesday.
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TARC), a nonpartisan research think tank based at Syracuse University in New York that analyzed U.S. Justice Department statistics, said the department’s San Antonio-based Western District of Texas has led the way.
TARC Report
Immigration prosecutions in the sprawling district, which stretches north to Austin and west along the border to El Paso, were already increasing when they skyrocketed this year, from 626 in January to 3,555 in March, according to the TRAC report.
For the first six months of the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, the district took on 8,036 immigration prosecutions, a 461 percent jump from the same period the previous year.
“We’ve never seen a surge like this one,” said David Burnham, co-director of TRAC, which has been researching federal prosecutions since 1986.
Though he couldn’t explain the more recent spike, immigration prosecutions in the district took off in December 2005 with the launching of the multi-agency Operation Streamline in Del Rio.
Bucking the traditional practice of promptly depositing unauthorized Mexican border crossers back to their side of the Rio Grande, the government instead detained, prosecuted and — in most cases — convicted them for illegally entering the country, a federal misdemeanor carrying a maximum six-month jail sentence.
Convinced it had found a solid deterrent against unauthorized immigration, the government has since expanded the “zero tolerance” program to southern Arizona and the Laredo area and will soon introduce it in the Rio Grande Valley.
The program’s impact is evident: Fewer unauthorized immigrants are coming across and those who get caught decide against trying their luck again, said Johnny Sutton, the U.S. attorney for the Western District.
Increased funding has come through the Justice Department’s Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative, which has added 32 prosecutors to his office since the program was created in November 2001.
The program has come under heavy political scrutiny. Federal public defenders have been forced to take on much heavier workloads without additional resources, said Marjorie Meyers, director of the Houston-based federal public defender program for South Texas.
“It’s a waste of resources,” Meyers said. “We should be focusing on major criminals and not on people coming across the border for work.”
Her argument is seconded not only by immigrant advocates, but by activists against unauthorized immigration.
Art Kownslar, director of the 125-member Central Texas chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, said it’s simply not cost-effective to detain, jail and prosecute first-time, non-criminal crossers.
Toss them back and instead spend the money busting up large-scale smuggling rings, Kownslar advised.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/mexico/stories/MYSA.20080618.04A.immig.1357c481.html
Web Posted: 06/17/2008 10:23 PM CDT
By Hernán Rozemberg
Express-News
An experimental immigration enforcement program in South Texas rolled out less than three years ago — and now duplicated elsewhere — is prompting a record-setting count of federal prosecutions of first-time unauthorized border crossers, according to a report released Tuesday.
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TARC), a nonpartisan research think tank based at Syracuse University in New York that analyzed U.S. Justice Department statistics, said the department’s San Antonio-based Western District of Texas has led the way.
TARC Report
Immigration prosecutions in the sprawling district, which stretches north to Austin and west along the border to El Paso, were already increasing when they skyrocketed this year, from 626 in January to 3,555 in March, according to the TRAC report.
For the first six months of the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, the district took on 8,036 immigration prosecutions, a 461 percent jump from the same period the previous year.
“We’ve never seen a surge like this one,” said David Burnham, co-director of TRAC, which has been researching federal prosecutions since 1986.
Though he couldn’t explain the more recent spike, immigration prosecutions in the district took off in December 2005 with the launching of the multi-agency Operation Streamline in Del Rio.
Bucking the traditional practice of promptly depositing unauthorized Mexican border crossers back to their side of the Rio Grande, the government instead detained, prosecuted and — in most cases — convicted them for illegally entering the country, a federal misdemeanor carrying a maximum six-month jail sentence.
Convinced it had found a solid deterrent against unauthorized immigration, the government has since expanded the “zero tolerance” program to southern Arizona and the Laredo area and will soon introduce it in the Rio Grande Valley.
The program’s impact is evident: Fewer unauthorized immigrants are coming across and those who get caught decide against trying their luck again, said Johnny Sutton, the U.S. attorney for the Western District.
Increased funding has come through the Justice Department’s Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative, which has added 32 prosecutors to his office since the program was created in November 2001.
The program has come under heavy political scrutiny. Federal public defenders have been forced to take on much heavier workloads without additional resources, said Marjorie Meyers, director of the Houston-based federal public defender program for South Texas.
“It’s a waste of resources,” Meyers said. “We should be focusing on major criminals and not on people coming across the border for work.”
Her argument is seconded not only by immigrant advocates, but by activists against unauthorized immigration.
Art Kownslar, director of the 125-member Central Texas chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, said it’s simply not cost-effective to detain, jail and prosecute first-time, non-criminal crossers.
Toss them back and instead spend the money busting up large-scale smuggling rings, Kownslar advised.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/mexico/stories/MYSA.20080618.04A.immig.1357c481.html
May 28, 2008
More illegal immigrants are being charged criminally in Austin
More illegal immigrants are being charged criminally in Austin
Prison time comes before deportation for some.
By Steven Kreytak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
His mother had suffered a stroke, and his family needed money. So even though he had been deported once from the United States last year, Edgar Rodriguez-Sarmiento left his home in a rural Honduran village, paid a smuggler $2,000 to get him across the border and sought work while living in an Austin apartment off East Riverside Drive in January, according to court documents and his lawyer.
Six weeks later, Rodriguez was arrested on public intoxication charges and brought to the Travis County Jail. He was tagged by immigration agents and became enmeshed in a federal effort to charge even those with minor or no criminal history with the crime of re-entering the U.S. after deportation, a felony.
The effort, part of a nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration, has led to a surge in the number of undocumented immigrants in Austin who are being hit with a felony conviction, and sometimes sent to prison, before being deported.
The practice has been criticized by immigrant advocates and defense lawyers, who call it a waste of resources.
In recent years, about three to five people a month were charged in U.S. District Court in Austin with returning to the United States after deportation. In March, when Rodriguez was indicted, 17 people were charged with the crime in federal court in Austin, according to an American-Statesman review of cases.
In April, federal prosecutors in Austin charged 21 people with illegally re-entering the United States after deportation, and this month they have charged 25, according to the review. A total of eight people were charged in January and February.
Illegal re-entry is punishable by as much as to two years in prison. If the defendant has a previous aggravated felony, the maximum punishment goes up to 20 years in prison.
U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton is leading the federal effortin the western district of Texas, which covers a wide swath of the border, including the cities of El Paso and Del Rio.
A recent report by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse said the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency had filed 8,064 cases nationwide in February, a 43.8 percent increase compared with February 2007.
"There's a strong push to enforce the immigration laws and to be more aggressive," Sutton said. "Criminal illegal aliens are being prosecuted where maybe sometimes in the past they weren't."
Until two years ago, Sutton's office had a long-standing practice of prosecuting for illegal re-entry only immigrants who had previously committed an aggravated felony, such as rape, burglary or drug trafficking, or who had been deported and re-entered the country numerous times. The 2006 increase in cases against some immigrants with minor or no criminal histories appeared to be part of a national crackdown. But Sutton said at the time that there wouldn't be a sustained increase in those cases. There wasn't, until this year.
Adrian Ramirez, a San Antonio-based assistant field director for ICE's detention and removal division, said things changed in December or January after agency officials met with federal prosecutors in Washington. After that meeting, Ramirez said, agents were told to bring the cases of any immigrant who had been previously deported, even if they had no significant criminal history, to the U.S. attorney's office, which had agreed to prosecute them.
"They wanted a big push on that," Ramirez said. "Prosecution is a deterrent, especially for people who have already had an opportunity to be here, were deported and came back."
Ramirez oversees immigration agents who look for undocumented immigrants in prison and jails, including the Travis County Jail, where the increased presence of immigration agents this year has drawn protests in Austin.
ICE officials have said that from January 1 through March 31, the agency placed 763 immigration holds on inmates at the Travis County Jail — an almost 400 percent increase from the same period last year. That means that after the cases of those inmates are adjudicated, ICE is contacted to take possession of the person. Most are deported immediately, Ramirez said. The ones who have previously been deported are referred to the U.S. attorney's office, which prosecutes them in federal court.
A spokesman for Sutton said he did not know the average sentence for people found guilty illegal re-entry in Austin but said that in the western district of Texas, about 65 percent of defendants in immigration cases receive less than three years in prison.
"As a taxpayer, it's ridiculous that federal prosecutors are having to spend their time on these cases," said Horatio Aldredge, an assistant federal public defender who has defended many of the people charged with immigration crimes in Austin. He said that court personnel — defense lawyers, judges, prosecutors and clerks — are working harder than ever to handle the cases.
Rebecca Bernhardt, policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, questioned whether federal resources are being used wisely. "It goes against the trend that's happening at most state law enforcement levels of taking jail and prison resources and choosing not to deploy them towards nonviolent offenders," she said.
Of the 71 people charged in federal court in Austin since Jan. 1 with re-entry of a deported alien, 39 were discovered by immigration agents in the Travis County Jail, two were found in the Travis County state jail, an intermediate prison, and nine were discovered in the jails of counties outside Austin.
The rest, authorities said, were found during criminal investigations, such as when ICE breaks up an immigrant smuggling operation and finds that some of the human cargo have previously been deported.
"All these individuals ... presented for prosecutions, even for what some may consider a minor violation like entry after deportation, they all ... have come into our custody in some sort of criminal environment," said Gerry Robinette, special agent in charge of the ICE office of investigations in San Antonio, who oversees the Austin office. "It's not like we went out there and blindly picked on somebody."
One of the defendants recently prosecuted for illegal re-entry in Austin was Jaime Segura-Moreno, who in 2005 was sentenced in Corpus Christi to 17 months in prison for unlawfully transporting illegal immigrants within the United States. He was deported after he was released from prison in 2006 and found in Travis County in December. He was at a house being investigated after a report that immigrant smugglers were holding someone against their will pending payment of their smuggling fee, according to statements made during Segura's sentencing hearing last week. U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel [appointed by President George W. Bush in 2003] sentenced Segura to almost five years in prison for illegal re-entry and six months for violating his supervised release on the previous charge.
Rodriguez, the Honduran who said he returned to the United States because his mother suffered a stroke, is from a rural village called Santa Teresa, where he worked as a corn farmer. He was arrested in January after Austin police found him passed out in the front seat of a car whose driver was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated, according to court documents.
Aldredge, his lawyer, said the 22-year-old earned about $800 as a laborer while in Austin, not enough to cover his smuggling fee. Last week, Yeakel sentenced Rodriguez to the approximately three months that he had served awaiting sentencing
At the hearing, Rodriguez told Yeakel: "I am not coming back."
skreytak@statesman.com; 912-2946
http://www.statesman.com/search/content/news/stories/local/05/28/0528immigration.html
Prison time comes before deportation for some.
By Steven Kreytak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
His mother had suffered a stroke, and his family needed money. So even though he had been deported once from the United States last year, Edgar Rodriguez-Sarmiento left his home in a rural Honduran village, paid a smuggler $2,000 to get him across the border and sought work while living in an Austin apartment off East Riverside Drive in January, according to court documents and his lawyer.
Six weeks later, Rodriguez was arrested on public intoxication charges and brought to the Travis County Jail. He was tagged by immigration agents and became enmeshed in a federal effort to charge even those with minor or no criminal history with the crime of re-entering the U.S. after deportation, a felony.
The effort, part of a nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration, has led to a surge in the number of undocumented immigrants in Austin who are being hit with a felony conviction, and sometimes sent to prison, before being deported.
The practice has been criticized by immigrant advocates and defense lawyers, who call it a waste of resources.
In recent years, about three to five people a month were charged in U.S. District Court in Austin with returning to the United States after deportation. In March, when Rodriguez was indicted, 17 people were charged with the crime in federal court in Austin, according to an American-Statesman review of cases.
In April, federal prosecutors in Austin charged 21 people with illegally re-entering the United States after deportation, and this month they have charged 25, according to the review. A total of eight people were charged in January and February.
Illegal re-entry is punishable by as much as to two years in prison. If the defendant has a previous aggravated felony, the maximum punishment goes up to 20 years in prison.
U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton is leading the federal effortin the western district of Texas, which covers a wide swath of the border, including the cities of El Paso and Del Rio.
A recent report by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse said the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency had filed 8,064 cases nationwide in February, a 43.8 percent increase compared with February 2007.
"There's a strong push to enforce the immigration laws and to be more aggressive," Sutton said. "Criminal illegal aliens are being prosecuted where maybe sometimes in the past they weren't."
Until two years ago, Sutton's office had a long-standing practice of prosecuting for illegal re-entry only immigrants who had previously committed an aggravated felony, such as rape, burglary or drug trafficking, or who had been deported and re-entered the country numerous times. The 2006 increase in cases against some immigrants with minor or no criminal histories appeared to be part of a national crackdown. But Sutton said at the time that there wouldn't be a sustained increase in those cases. There wasn't, until this year.
Adrian Ramirez, a San Antonio-based assistant field director for ICE's detention and removal division, said things changed in December or January after agency officials met with federal prosecutors in Washington. After that meeting, Ramirez said, agents were told to bring the cases of any immigrant who had been previously deported, even if they had no significant criminal history, to the U.S. attorney's office, which had agreed to prosecute them.
"They wanted a big push on that," Ramirez said. "Prosecution is a deterrent, especially for people who have already had an opportunity to be here, were deported and came back."
Ramirez oversees immigration agents who look for undocumented immigrants in prison and jails, including the Travis County Jail, where the increased presence of immigration agents this year has drawn protests in Austin.
ICE officials have said that from January 1 through March 31, the agency placed 763 immigration holds on inmates at the Travis County Jail — an almost 400 percent increase from the same period last year. That means that after the cases of those inmates are adjudicated, ICE is contacted to take possession of the person. Most are deported immediately, Ramirez said. The ones who have previously been deported are referred to the U.S. attorney's office, which prosecutes them in federal court.
A spokesman for Sutton said he did not know the average sentence for people found guilty illegal re-entry in Austin but said that in the western district of Texas, about 65 percent of defendants in immigration cases receive less than three years in prison.
"As a taxpayer, it's ridiculous that federal prosecutors are having to spend their time on these cases," said Horatio Aldredge, an assistant federal public defender who has defended many of the people charged with immigration crimes in Austin. He said that court personnel — defense lawyers, judges, prosecutors and clerks — are working harder than ever to handle the cases.
Rebecca Bernhardt, policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, questioned whether federal resources are being used wisely. "It goes against the trend that's happening at most state law enforcement levels of taking jail and prison resources and choosing not to deploy them towards nonviolent offenders," she said.
Of the 71 people charged in federal court in Austin since Jan. 1 with re-entry of a deported alien, 39 were discovered by immigration agents in the Travis County Jail, two were found in the Travis County state jail, an intermediate prison, and nine were discovered in the jails of counties outside Austin.
The rest, authorities said, were found during criminal investigations, such as when ICE breaks up an immigrant smuggling operation and finds that some of the human cargo have previously been deported.
"All these individuals ... presented for prosecutions, even for what some may consider a minor violation like entry after deportation, they all ... have come into our custody in some sort of criminal environment," said Gerry Robinette, special agent in charge of the ICE office of investigations in San Antonio, who oversees the Austin office. "It's not like we went out there and blindly picked on somebody."
One of the defendants recently prosecuted for illegal re-entry in Austin was Jaime Segura-Moreno, who in 2005 was sentenced in Corpus Christi to 17 months in prison for unlawfully transporting illegal immigrants within the United States. He was deported after he was released from prison in 2006 and found in Travis County in December. He was at a house being investigated after a report that immigrant smugglers were holding someone against their will pending payment of their smuggling fee, according to statements made during Segura's sentencing hearing last week. U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel [appointed by President George W. Bush in 2003] sentenced Segura to almost five years in prison for illegal re-entry and six months for violating his supervised release on the previous charge.
Rodriguez, the Honduran who said he returned to the United States because his mother suffered a stroke, is from a rural village called Santa Teresa, where he worked as a corn farmer. He was arrested in January after Austin police found him passed out in the front seat of a car whose driver was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated, according to court documents.
Aldredge, his lawyer, said the 22-year-old earned about $800 as a laborer while in Austin, not enough to cover his smuggling fee. Last week, Yeakel sentenced Rodriguez to the approximately three months that he had served awaiting sentencing
At the hearing, Rodriguez told Yeakel: "I am not coming back."
skreytak@statesman.com; 912-2946
http://www.statesman.com/search/content/news/stories/local/05/28/0528immigration.html
October 25, 2007
Hernandez is released
Hernandez is released
By Glenn Willeford / Special to the Avalanche
ROCKSPRINGS - It isn't every day one sees crusty ranchmen wiping tears off their faces. Last Saturday was an exception.
The courthouse square of Edwards County was swollen with people by 5 p.m. One and all awaited the arrival of Rocksprings favorite son Guillermo "Gilmer" L. Hernandez, who had been released from a federal penitentiary earlier in the week.
Rocksprings, the seat of a wool- and mohair-raising county on the western extremity of the Texas Hill Country, had turned out to welcome him home after he served 10 months of a one-year-plus-one-day sentence for violating the civil rights of an illegal immigrant during the course of his duties as deputy sheriff.
Hernandez, who was seated on the back of a flatbed truck holding his small daughter, smiled broadly at the cheers and tears that greeted his arrival about a quarter hour later. As he and his family of three approached the crowd, a cheer went up and the hugs began. Carolyn Anderson, co-publisher of The Rocksprings Record, probably spoke for them all when she said Gilmer had simply been "out doing his job." And then "this" happened.
Just before midnight on April 4, 2005, as Hernandez was preparing to go off duty, a Chevrolet Suburban ran a stop sign at the main intersection in Rocksprings. Hernandez activated his red lights and pursued the vehicle past the edge of town where the SUV stopped.
As the deputy approached the blue Suburban, he said he noticed there were a number of people inside who appeared to be hiding. Hernandez asked the driver to step out, at which time he accelerated and swerved to hit the officer while speeding away.
Hernandez drew his sidearm and fired four shots at one of the tires. His aim was true, and the tire flattened as the Suburban careened away and finally came to a stop several hundred yards up the highway.
The driver and eight occupants fled into the night. One occupant, however, Maricela Rodriguez G., an illegal immigrant who Hernandez says was being smuggled into Texas, had been hit in the mouth by a bullet fragment and had a tooth dislodged. She was transported to an area hospital, treated and released into the custody of her husband, a Texas resident.
Edwards County Sheriff Don G. Letsinger requested an interagency investigation to be conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety. That investigation concluded that Hernandez did nothing wrong. Nonetheless, the Mexican consul lodged a complaint.
U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, an appointee of President George W. Bush, ordered Hernandez's arrest. Sutton offered Hernandez a three-year sentence, probated; nevertheless, the 25-year-old officer, believing he had done nothing wrong, refused the offer and awaited trial.
Sutton had also been responsible for the prosecution of Border Patrol Agents Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, both sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for wounding an illegal immigrant as he ran from a truckload of marijuana after being stopped by the two agents.
Hernandez faced a federal jury in Del Rio, which convicted him of "violating the civil rights" of Rodriguez.
Sheriff Letsinger and other Edwards County citizens attended the trial to show their support for their deputy sheriff.
At sentencing, the federal judge deviated from guidelines and, although refusing to grant probation, delivered Hernandez a "one year plus one day" term in prison, the "one day" being a sentencing variant that would make the defendant eligible for early release.
He went directly to prison, leaving behind his wife and infant daughter.
Speaking to participants last Saturday in Rocksprings, Edwards County Chief Deputy Sheriff Jay Adams said, "You like to think the government's behind you, then something happens, and you find out you don't have any protection."
Two U.S. congressmen, Ciro D. Rodriguez of San Antonio and Ted Poe of Houston, were present. Both pledged to petition the White House for a complete pardon in order to vacate Hernandez's conviction.
http://www.alpineavalanche.com/articles/2007/10/25/front/news05.txt
By Glenn Willeford / Special to the Avalanche
ROCKSPRINGS - It isn't every day one sees crusty ranchmen wiping tears off their faces. Last Saturday was an exception.
The courthouse square of Edwards County was swollen with people by 5 p.m. One and all awaited the arrival of Rocksprings favorite son Guillermo "Gilmer" L. Hernandez, who had been released from a federal penitentiary earlier in the week.
Rocksprings, the seat of a wool- and mohair-raising county on the western extremity of the Texas Hill Country, had turned out to welcome him home after he served 10 months of a one-year-plus-one-day sentence for violating the civil rights of an illegal immigrant during the course of his duties as deputy sheriff.
Hernandez, who was seated on the back of a flatbed truck holding his small daughter, smiled broadly at the cheers and tears that greeted his arrival about a quarter hour later. As he and his family of three approached the crowd, a cheer went up and the hugs began. Carolyn Anderson, co-publisher of The Rocksprings Record, probably spoke for them all when she said Gilmer had simply been "out doing his job." And then "this" happened.
Just before midnight on April 4, 2005, as Hernandez was preparing to go off duty, a Chevrolet Suburban ran a stop sign at the main intersection in Rocksprings. Hernandez activated his red lights and pursued the vehicle past the edge of town where the SUV stopped.
As the deputy approached the blue Suburban, he said he noticed there were a number of people inside who appeared to be hiding. Hernandez asked the driver to step out, at which time he accelerated and swerved to hit the officer while speeding away.
Hernandez drew his sidearm and fired four shots at one of the tires. His aim was true, and the tire flattened as the Suburban careened away and finally came to a stop several hundred yards up the highway.
The driver and eight occupants fled into the night. One occupant, however, Maricela Rodriguez G., an illegal immigrant who Hernandez says was being smuggled into Texas, had been hit in the mouth by a bullet fragment and had a tooth dislodged. She was transported to an area hospital, treated and released into the custody of her husband, a Texas resident.
Edwards County Sheriff Don G. Letsinger requested an interagency investigation to be conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety. That investigation concluded that Hernandez did nothing wrong. Nonetheless, the Mexican consul lodged a complaint.
U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, an appointee of President George W. Bush, ordered Hernandez's arrest. Sutton offered Hernandez a three-year sentence, probated; nevertheless, the 25-year-old officer, believing he had done nothing wrong, refused the offer and awaited trial.
Sutton had also been responsible for the prosecution of Border Patrol Agents Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, both sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for wounding an illegal immigrant as he ran from a truckload of marijuana after being stopped by the two agents.
Hernandez faced a federal jury in Del Rio, which convicted him of "violating the civil rights" of Rodriguez.
Sheriff Letsinger and other Edwards County citizens attended the trial to show their support for their deputy sheriff.
At sentencing, the federal judge deviated from guidelines and, although refusing to grant probation, delivered Hernandez a "one year plus one day" term in prison, the "one day" being a sentencing variant that would make the defendant eligible for early release.
He went directly to prison, leaving behind his wife and infant daughter.
Speaking to participants last Saturday in Rocksprings, Edwards County Chief Deputy Sheriff Jay Adams said, "You like to think the government's behind you, then something happens, and you find out you don't have any protection."
Two U.S. congressmen, Ciro D. Rodriguez of San Antonio and Ted Poe of Houston, were present. Both pledged to petition the White House for a complete pardon in order to vacate Hernandez's conviction.
http://www.alpineavalanche.com/articles/2007/10/25/front/news05.txt
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