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 News from Around the Americas | January 2007 
Convicted Border Agents Report to Prison
 Alicia A. Caldwell - Associated Press
| | Former U.S. Border Patrol agent Ignacio Ramos embraced his wife, Monica Ramos, two days before he was sentenced to 11 years in prison. (El Paso Times) |
A pair of former U.S. Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a Mexican drug smuggler and trying to cover it up began serving their federal prison sentences Wednesday, officials said.
Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos were convicted last year in the shooting of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila. A federal judge sentenced Ramos to 11 years and one day, and Compean was given 12 years in prison.
A spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service in El Paso said the married fathers surrendered just before Judge Kathleen Cardone's deadline of 2 p.m. Wednesday. Cardone denied a request to let them remain free pending appeals.
Attorneys for the agents didn't immediately return calls seeking comment.
Hours before the deadline, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton issued a five-page document outlining what he called the case's "myth vs. reality."
The document covered everything from claims that the former agents "were just doing their jobs" to reports that the shooting was at night when it actually happened about 1 p.m. on Feb. 17, 2005.
Sutton devoted three paragraphs to details about Border Patrol training and testimony from another agent claiming there was no threat the day the men fired 15 shots at Aldrete, who was hit once in the buttocks.
Sutton has been criticized by supporters of the former agents, who have claimed they were defending themselves when they shot Aldrete, who they said was armed. Aldrete, who retreated to Mexico after the shooting, has admitted he was trying to smuggle marijuana while in the country illegally.
Both men are appealing their convictions, and several members of Congress have urged President Bush to pardon them. |
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