Federal prosecutors have charged ICE officer Christian Castro with allegedly making false statements about a January shooting involving a Venezuelan migrant in Minneapolis, months after Minnesota prosecutors filed assault charges and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott refused to extradite him.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A federal criminal charge has now been filed against Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Christian Castro, adding a new layer to a months-long legal battle stemming from the January shooting of a Venezuelan migrant during an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis.
The case began in January, when ICE agents were involved in a confrontation in Minneapolis that ended with Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan migrant, being shot in the leg.
Accounts of what happened during the encounter have differed.
Fox News reporter Bill Melugin reported that ICE agents shot a shovel-wielding Venezuelan after he allegedly attempted to assault federal law enforcement officers.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, meanwhile, sharply criticized federal immigration operations in the state at the time, accusing agents of “going door-to-door ordering people to point out where their neighbors of color live.”
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty later brought state criminal charges against Castro over the shooting.
Moriarty charged the ICE officer with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime. Her office maintained that the Venezuelan migrant involved in the incident was legally present in the United States.
Castro was subsequently arrested in Texas in May.
Minnesota officials then sought to have him returned to the state to face prosecution, but Texas Gov. Greg Abbott refused to comply with the extradition effort.
That refusal led Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to file a lawsuit against Abbott seeking to force Texas to surrender Castro.
“Christian Castro has been charged with breaking the law in Minnesota,” Ellison said.
“He must face justice in Minnesota. Governor Abbott should have granted Governor Walz’s extradition request long ago and is required to do so now,” he said.
Abbott rejected Minnesota’s demand, leaving the extradition dispute unresolved.
Federal prosecutors have now opened their own case against Castro, separate from the Minnesota prosecution.
According to the Associated Press, the federal charge concerns statements Castro allegedly made to investigators about the circumstances leading up to the shooting.
Federal prosecutors have charged a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer with lying to investigators about the events leading up to the shooting of a Venezuelan man during the Minneapolis immigration crackdown earlier this year, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
The person was not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity. The person said Christian Castro, the officer who authorities say shot Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg in January, has been charged with making false statements to federal investigators.
The federal case therefore does not charge Castro with the shooting itself.
Instead, prosecutors are accusing him of making false statements during the investigation into what occurred before and during the January encounter.
The new prosecution places Castro in the unusual position of facing legal action from both state and federal authorities while Texas and Minnesota remain locked in a separate dispute over custody.
Minnesota’s case focuses on the shooting and Castro’s alleged reporting of the incident, while the federal case centers specifically on whether he gave investigators truthful information.
Ellison is continuing to argue that Texas must honor Minnesota’s extradition request so Castro can answer the state charges in court.
Abbott, however, has thus far refused to turn him over.
The result is now a three-part legal conflict: Minnesota’s assault prosecution, the interstate extradition dispute and a separate federal false-statements case.
At the center of all three proceedings remains the January Minneapolis shooting and the competing accounts of whether Castro’s use of force was justified and whether his subsequent descriptions of the incident were accurate.
With federal prosecutors now pursuing their own charge, Castro faces potential criminal liability regardless of whether Minnesota immediately succeeds in bringing him back from Texas.
Original article
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