Another trucker out of route with suspicious excuse lead to arrest Border Patrol agents arrested a trucker at the Falfurrias checkpoint on Friday after they found immigrants hiding in the trailer he was hauling. Gerald Leon Graves arrived at the Falfurrias checkpoint at 5:20 a.m. Friday driving a green Volvo truck with a white refrigerated
Was it “coincidence” Border Patrol agents “overlooked” Bradley’s trailer? Investigators with Homeland Security are looking into how James Bradley was able to bring his trailer full of as many as 200 immigrants through a Border Patrol-run traffic checkpoint on Interstate 35 north of Laredo. Perhaps we can offer them a direction to point their investigation.
Today on the front page of El Universal, the declaration of a protected witness in the federal (PGR) case against El Chapo Guzman says that the US Border Patrol escorted trucks of weapons to the border, abandoned the vehicles and assisted members of the Sinaloa Cartel who then took the guns into Mexico. The declarations come
In a politically sensitive operation at the Arizona- Mexico border, U.S. Border Patrol agents and Mexican federal police officers are training together, sharing intelligence and coordinating patrols for the first time. The goal of the historic partnership: a systematic joint attack on northbound flows of drugs and migrants, and southbound shipments of guns and cash.
BELLINGHAM, Wash. - Joseph Giuliano, the former high-ranking Border Patrol official accused of having sex with a 14-year-old girl, changed his plea to guilty of third-degree child rape Thursday in Whatcom County Superior Court. Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Mac Setter said he’s recommending Giuliano serve one year in custody of the Whatcom County Jail on
The Border Patrol says they found 25 illegal immigrants hiding inside a pair of semi trucks. About 10:30 p.m. on Thursday night, Border Patrol agents chased a group of suspected illegal immigrants into a parking lot at the Golden Acorn Casino. Officials said the group got into a cargo trailer via a trap door under
Harlingen Texas - A U.S. Border Patrol agent was arrested by Cameron County Sheriff’s Department deputies after an investigation into allegations that he had a sexual relation with a 14-year-old girl. Francisco Villanueva, 35, was charged Wednesday with soliciting sexual relations with a minor, which is a second-degree felony, and engaging in sexual acts with
FBI agents have arrested a U.S. Border Patrol agent accused of accepting $39,000 in bribes and using his personal vehicle while in uniform to drive narcotics across the U.S.-Mexico border in his patrol area. Border Patrol Agent Eric Raymond Macias, who was stationed in Deming, turned himself in to FBI agents Friday at their Las
It’s official: Border Patrol agent Nicholas Corbett won’t be tried again in an illegal immigrant’s shooting death. U.S. District Court Judge David Bury has granted a prosecution motion to dismiss second-degree murder, manslaughter and negligent homicide charges, without prejudice, meaning hey can be refiled if new evidence is developed. Two trials in 2008 ended with
UPDATE - Suit was filed Tuesday A law firm representing the parents of a Mexican man killed by Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Corbett recently submitted a $7.5 million claim notice, which is a prelude to filing a lawsuit, against him and the government. Meanwhile, a personal lawsuit against Corbett is expected to be filed separately
Two South Texas Border Patrol agents appeared in federal court Thursday on charges alleging they helped drug traffickers move their product across the U.S.-Mexico border. A grand jury in Houston returned sealed indictments Dec. 1 against Leonel Morales, 30, of the Border Patrol’s Laredo sector and Salomon Ruiz, 34, of the Rio Grande Valley sector.
A US District Judge today resentenced Former Border Patrol Agent Jose Alonso Compean to 10 years for his conviction of using a weapon in the commission of a felony, plus two years for assault and other charges. Compean and former agent Ignacio Ramos were convicted in 2006 of shooting admitted drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete Davila
A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced a former Border Patrol agent convicted of violating the civil rights of two undocumented immigrants to one year in prison. Santiago Perez, 28, of Edinburg, Texas, admitted as part of a guilty plea in August that he assaulted a Guatemalan and a Mexican man on separate occasions. Perez admitted
Despite overwhelming evidence pointing to the guilt of Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Corbet in the murder of Francisco Javier Dominguez Rivera, U.S. District Judge David C. Bury declared a mistrial at 1345 today. More on this breaking story as it becomes available. The prosecution has not indicated whether it will try a third time. In
DAY 9 (11/03) UPDATE - The Jury has recessed for the day. 13 hours total time in deliberations. The jury got the case at about 1430 on November 30. Deliberations began for about two hours, adjourned, resumed on Friday and adjourned once again until this morning. the jurors sent a note to Judge David Bury
The fate of a U.S. Border Patrol agent Nicholas Corbett charged with murdering Javier Dominguez Rivera is now in the hands of the jury. U.S. District Judge David C. Bury handed over the case to a 12-person jury about 2:30 p.m. Thursday, after they sat through a morning of closing arguments that demonstrated contrasting accounts
The defense in the murder trial of Border Patrol agent Nicholas Corbett opened yesterday with testimony from a California pathologist hired by the defense. Richard Mason, forensic pathologist from Santa Cruz County, California, is the same M.E. that was used in the first trial, Mason is short, likely close to eighty years old, and wears
More than seven months after the first trial ended with a hung jury, the retrial of a U.S. Border Patrol agent facing murder charges begins today at the U.S. District Court in Tucson. Here’s the playbook The case: U.S. Border Patrol agent Nicholas Corbett is charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and negligent homicide in the
Two former Border Patrol agents were arrested in Mexico after more than two years on the run and were charged in the U.S. with taking bribes to help illegal immigrants cross the border, authorities said Monday. A federal indictment unsealed Monday in San Diego accuses brothers Raul and Fidel Villarreal of taking bribes, smuggling illegal
Add the name Nicholas Corbett to the rogues gallery of Border Patril agents who think because they were a badge, the are above the law. Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean are two others who come to mind. This week federal prosecutors will open a murder trial against an Arizona border agent. But for many people,
BELLINGHAM, Wash. — One of the top U.S. Border Patrol officials responsible for Alaska has been arrested at his home in Washington on child rape charges. The Whatcom County sheriff’s office said deputies arrested Joseph W. Giuliano, the deputy chief patrol agent at the agency’s Blaine sector, on Thursday at his home. Blaine sector covers
Border Patrol agents seized more than 1,400 pounds of marijuana over the weekend in four separate busts, according to Laredo Sector Border Patrol The most recent seizure occurred Monday at Texas 16 traffic checkpoint. Hebbronville agents observed a white pickup truck heading northbound make an abrupt U-turn prior to reaching the checkpoint. Agents observed the
