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 Jan. 12, 2007, shooting of Francisco Javier Domínguez Rivera, a 22-year-old illegal immigrant from Puebla, Mexico.
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 immigrants, tampering with witnesses and conspiring to launder money.
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, the case also will put on trial the nation’s border security strategy. The retrial of U.S. Border Patrol agent Nicholas Corbett in Tucson is inflaming the divided passions about immigration and border security. Corbett’s defenders say the case is about a man defending himself against ….Read More
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 Alaska, Oregon and Western Washington. The 55-year-old man had been charged Wednesday in Whatcom County Superior Court with raping a 14-year-old girl who was staying in his home. Prosecutors charged him with three counts of third-degree child rape. Giuliano made an initial court appearance Thursday ….Read More
Convicted Felons and former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean lost another appeal Thursday. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans refused to reconsider the ruling a three-judge panel had issued in late July that affirmed most of the charges against Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. The men shot Osvaldo Aldrete Davila of Mexico, hitting the unarmed smuggler in the buttocks after he abandoned a load of marijuana and ran across the border into Mexico. The agents said they fired because they thought he had a gun in his hand, but were sent to ….Read More