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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Jury rejects border military trespassing charge
Jun. 5—In two words, an El Paso jury on Thursday rendered a blow to the Trump administration's new attempt to charge migrants with additional crimes for crossing illegally into the U.S. at the Texas and New Mexico international borders. The "not guilty" verdict in U.S. Magistrate Court in El Paso came in the case of a Peruvian woman charged with the petty misdemeanor of entering restricted military property when she crossed into the U.S. on May 12 west of Tornillo, Texas. The jury did convict Adely Vanessa De La Cruz-Alvarez of the charge of illegal entry, and U.S. Magistrate Judge Laura Enriquez dismissed the third charge of violation of a security regulation. It was one of the first times, if not the first, that average citizens have weighed in on the new "novel" approach to immigration enforcement at the U.S. border with Mexico. The Department of Defense, at the behest of the White House, established temporary military zones in April adjacent to the international border. The defense areas stretch about 180 miles in New Mexico and 63 miles in western Texas, and signs are posted about every 100 feet warning of the restricted zones. "This is a victory," said Veronica Lerma, one of the El Paso defense attorneys in the case. "We hope this sends a message that there are attorneys willing to set these case-for-jury trials and let the community decide." The jury deliberated for more than five hours after a two-day trial. Efforts to reach the U.S. Attorney's Office in El Paso for comment weren't successful Thursday. Lerma said her 21-year-old client, captured after she walked across the Rio Grande riverbed from Mexico, will likely be deported back to her home in Peru. She was sentenced to time served on the illegal entry conviction. "She was crying and hugged us (upon hearing she was acquitted of the trespass charge)," said another defense attorney, Shane McMahon. Conviction on the petty misdemeanor would have carried a prison term of up to six months. The violation of a security regulation charge carries up to a year in prison. The new regulations are part of the Trump administration's push to deter undocumented immigrants from entering the country illegally. The potentially stiffer penalties, coupled with threats of mass deportations — for some immigrants to El Salvadoran prisons — are all part of a larger plan to reduce unlawful crossings to zero. "Many of these aliens unlawfully within the United States present significant threats to national security and public safety, committing vile and heinous acts against innocent Americans," reads an executive order, "Protecting the American People from Invasion," signed on President Donald Trump's first day in office. "Others are engaged in hostile activities, including espionage, economic espionage, and preparations for terror-related activities. Many have abused the generosity of the American people, and their presence in the United States has cost taxpayers billions of dollars at the Federal, State, and local levels." Before this new militarized zone, those convicted of illegal entry, typically charged for first time offenders, are deported after serving a brief stint in jail awaiting resolution of their cases. Defense attorneys argued that there was no evidence that De La Cruz knew the border area she entered was military property. Federal prosecutors contended that there was no need to prove she saw the signs or had specific knowledge because she intended to willfully violate the law by crossing illegally into the U.S. No such jury trials have occurred in New Mexico, according to court records. An estimated 700 cases involving military trespass violations at the New Mexico National Defense Area have been filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office, but the prosecutions have been rocky. Earlier this week, the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Mexico struck out when attempting to reinstate dozens of the military trespass charges dismissed by the state's chief U.S. Magistrate judge in Las Cruces on May 19. U.S. District Judge Sarah M. Davenport of New Mexico ruled Monday that there was no legal avenue to appeal because of the way the cases were charged. The judge didn't address the primary argument being raised in such cases: that the defendants didn't know that the border area they entered was a military property. Davenport wrote that the charges dismissed by Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Gregory Wormuth pertained to his ruling on a criminal complaint. Wormuth found the government lacked probable cause to bring military trespassing-related charges against a woman from Uzbekistan arrested in southern New Mexico in May. Davenport concluded that because a criminal complaint was the mechanism by which the charges were filed, the government had no legal right to appeal. Asked about the ruling, U.S. Attorney Ryan Ellison of New Mexico told the Journal through a spokeswoman on Thursday, "We remain committed to the commonsense principle that border security is national security. Every nation has the right and obligation to know exactly who and what is coming across its borders. While we respectfully disagree with the adverse rulings from the Court, the United States Attorney's Office is considering all available next steps — including various avenues of appeal — and will act with confidence in the merits of our position. Together with our military and Border Patrol partners, we have already made tremendous strides towards achieving operational control of our southern border." Davenport stated that the U.S. Attorney's Office can simply file what is known as a criminal information and continue such prosecutions. And, in recent weeks, that's what federal prosecutors have done in hundreds of cases. By filing criminal charges via an information, "it takes it out of a magistrate's hands," said McMahon on Thursday. But that could lead to the cases going to trial, as happened in El Paso.
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Yahoo
Defense attorney takes plea deal in sprawling DWI corruption case
Feb. 12—For nearly 30 years, Albuquerque attorney Thomas Clear III says he led a criminal racketeering enterprise that paid off generations of law enforcement officers to get his clients' DWI cases thrown out. The admission came Wednesday as the 67-year-old Clear, at an unannounced hearing in U.S. Magistrate Court, pleaded guilty to bribery of Albuquerque Police Department officers, racketeering conspiracy, aiding and abetting, and interference with commerce by extortion. A sentencing date hasn't been set. "Today, Thomas J. Clear III admitted to leading a decades-old criminal enterprise wherein he abandoned his own ethical duties as a lawyer, corrupted generations of law enforcement officers, and perverted the criminal justice system in order to feed his own greed," U.S. Attorney for New Mexico Alexander Uballez said in a statement to the Journal. "With this conviction, we end this ignominious scheme that has shaken the faith of all New Mexicans. But we are not done digging. Now is the time to come clean — if you were ever involved in this deceit, now is the time to come to the table." While Clear was the fourth defendant to take a plea in recent weeks — following his former investigator and two former APD DWI officers — his account that the scheme went as far back as the mid '90s is new and raises more questions than it answers. APD's sprawling Internal Affairs probe has traced the alleged corruption to about 2003. Another major participant who has pleaded guilty, Ricardo "Rick" Mendez, admitted going to work for Clear in 2007 and helping in the scheme beginning in 2008. But based on Clear's plea agreement, the covert scheme spanned the administrations of five Albuquerque police chiefs, including the current APD Chief Harold Medina. "I predicted this conspiracy went on for decades, and sure enough, Tom Clear admitted his bribery scheme dates back to 1995," Medina said in a statement Wednesday. "We worked with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office to finally expose Tom Clear's criminal scheme... As I have said, we will leave no stone unturned, even if it means going back 30 years to scrutinize the actions of officers. We are learning more details every day and we anticipate exposing more wrongdoing as our investigation continues." An FBI investigation into the scheme began in 2023 and 12 Albuquerque police officers with links to the DWI unit have resigned, retired or been fired since then. APD spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said the department's internal investigation, which has run parallel to the FBI's, is ongoing "as detectives continue to develop new information." Three of the officers who were placed on leave and later resigned, Honorio Alba Jr., 33, Joshua Montaño, 37, and Neill Elsman, 35, have pleaded guilty to racketeering, receiving a bribe and other charges in the case. Like Clear, Elsman also pleaded guilty Wednesday, admitting that he joined APD's DWI unit in 2019 and began taking bribes from Clear and Mendez in 2021. Elsman's attorney could not be reached. Attorney Thomas Clark, who is representing Clear, said his client "has taken responsibility for his actions." Up to now, Clear has refused to comment about the allegations. But on Wednesday, Clear admitted that from around 1995 he used his law firm "and my specialized skills as an attorney to lead a DWI bribery scheme involving numerous law enforcement officers and deputies from APD, New Mexico State Police and the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office." Prior to 2022, Clear and Mendez would arrange for officers to intentionally fail to appear at required pretrial interviews involving DWI offenders the officers arrested, according to the plea agreements. Then Clear would file motions to dismiss the proceedings, claiming the officers were necessary witnesses who didn't show up as required. And courts would dismiss the cases as a sanction. The operation dubbed the "DWI Enterprise" by federal prosecutors evolved in recent years when Clear stated that he, Mendez and the officers "worked out another method to guarantee dismissal of the state criminal DWI-related offenses." Officers began to miss actual court hearings, or would withhold evidence, or fail to complete paperwork on those suspects they arrested who later hired Clear. It isn't apparent from the court filings how much Clear and Mendez netted from the moneymaking scheme, but federal prosecutors contend that in April 2022, Clear and Mendez told one prospective client they would charge "$10,000 in exchange for having (the offender's) DWI charges dismissed and to avoid additional criminal charges potentially being filed." The defendant — identified in court records only as J.B. — did not pay the $10,000 and went to another attorney. J.B. had been arrested by Montaño, who previously had shared information about J.B.'s arrest with Mendez, who contacted the defendant after he was released from custody. Clear's plea agreement states that he distanced himself from direct involvement in meetings Mendez had with DWI offenders to set the cash payments required for a "guaranteed dismissal" or when Mendez would meet or have conversations with involved officers to discuss "specific bribe amounts or payments." Mendez has stated in his plea agreement that Clear wanted to protect his reputation. Clear, a Republican appointed to serve two terms on the state Public Defender Commission, has been practicing since at least 1982 when he joined his father, Thomas Clear Jr.'s law firm. Under Clear's plea, four of the counts are each punishable by up to 20 years in prison, while five other counts are each punishable by 10 years. If those were run consecutively, the total exposure is 130 years, according to a U.S. Attorney's Office spokeswoman.
