[NYTr] Judge's "House of Death" Ruling Reveals Truth of Drug War

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Narco News - Aug 25, 2007
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2007/8/25/164116/050

Judge's House of Death ruling reveals the truth of the drug war

By Bill Conroy

The U.S. government must surely be greasing up its spin machine in the
wake of a federal judge’s recent ruling in a lawsuit filed by the
families of the House of Death murder victims.

“We did nothing wrong, see,” will almost certainly be the message
pumped out by the U.S. government to anyone in the media who seeks to
avoid complexity or rocking the boat and is not averse to presenting
talking points as news.

In fact, it would not be surprising for the government agents at the
center of the House of Death controversy to now proclaim their
innocence and decry their victimization and actively seek the spotlight
— maybe even in the hope of cashing in on the House of Death bloodshed
via book contracts and movie deals.

That is how the game is played in America.

But those of you who have been following the House of Death story on
Narco News, by now, know this story is far to deep to be reduced to
simple sound bytes. And for those of you who are new to this story, and
care to read on, that reality will soon become apparent.

The families of the House of Death murder victims filed their lawsuit
in December 2005 in federal court in El Paso, Texas. They accused the
government and certain of its agents of constitutional violations and
negligence stemming from actions, or lack of actions, which resulted in
their loved ones being tortured, murdered and buried in the backyard of
a house in Juarez, Mexico.

The federal judge in the case, Frank Montalvo, essentially adopted the
government’s arguments in the House of Death case wholesale in issuing
his ruling earlier this week.

He dismissed the families claims against the United States government
as well as the claims against individual government agents, including
Assistant U.S. Attorney Juanita Fielden and U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE)  supervisors Giovanni Gaudioso, Patricia
Kramer, Curtis Compton and ICE agent Raul Bencomo.

Judge Montalvo ruled, in essence, that the families could not establish
legal claims under federal and state of Texas negligence statutes
because either those laws didn’t apply to the murder victims since the
crimes occurred in Mexico, or, in the alternative, because the
government owed no duty to protect the victims from the acts of third
parties — such as the Juarez-based narco-trafficking cell that operated
the House of Death.

>From the judge’s Aug. 20 ruling:

    Pursuant to the FTCA [the Federal Tort Claims Act], there is no
subject matter jurisdiction for claims “based on the exercise or
performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary
function or duty [in this case, preventing murder] on the part of a
federal agency or employee of the Government….”

The judge also dismissed the claims against the individual ICE agents
and U.S. prosecutor because he determined that the families had failed
to establish a proper claim that their constitutional rights, or those
of the murder victims, had been violated.

Montalvo points out in his ruling, that "public officials (such as ICE
agents and U.S. prosecutors) are entitled to “qualified immunity” for
their actions on the job unless they violate “clearly established
statutory or constitutional rights of which reasonable individuals
would be aware.”

“None of Plaintiffs’ [families’] allegations, even if true,
sufficiently establish constitutional liability on the part of any of
the individual Defendants [the ICE agents or U.S. prosecutor],”
Montalvo states in his ruling.

It is key here to note that Montalvo comes to his conclusions in this
case even in light of assuming all of the families allegations are
“true.” This is a quite amazing revelation about the nature of our law
with respect to murder.

Hired Killer

The major allegation in this case, which is supported by the
government’s own documents, is that an informant (Guillermo Ramirez
Peyro) who was on the payroll of ICE (paid some $200,000 for his
service) assisted, and in some cases participated, in the murders of
about a dozen people at the House of Death in Juarez, Mexico, between
August 2003 and mid-January 2004.

The families’ lawyer also alleges (and immigration court testimony by
the informant himself supports this) that ICE agents were made aware of
these murders, sometimes in advance of the killings, yet continued to
send the informant back to the House of Death time and time again over
the course of five months — after receiving approvals from high-level
officials at ICE headquarters as well as from the Department of Justice.

>From the informant’s under-oath testimony in U.S. Immigration Court —
where he is currently fighting deportation:


    Government attorney: Did you tell your — the ICE officers that you
were aware that Mr. Santillan [the boss of the Juarez narco-trafficking
cell] had ordered the deaths of people associated with the cartel [the
victims at the House of Death]?

    Ramirez Peyro: Yes.

    Government attorney: Did you tell them before, right before it
happened?

    Ramirez Peyro: Yeah, several occasions. For example, in one
occasion in Chicago, and Santillan talks to me, so I could send the boy
there to open the house [the House of Death in Juarez] and me being in
Chicago with the agents from ICE, and they knew because I authorize for
them to hear my phone conversations. And besides that, I told them
what’s going on, and in El Paso they [ICE agents] were listening my
phone calls.

The whole bloody affair came to an abrupt end when the killers —
Mexican cops on Santillan’s payroll — nearly assassinated a DEA agent
and his family. At that point, ICE officials and the U.S. Attorney’s
Office in San Antonio chose to finally arrest Santillan and pull their
informant, himself a former Mexican cop, out of the field.

So, even granting that all of this is true, Judge Montalvo still
determined that the families’ case has to be dismissed because the ICE
agents and the U.S. prosecutor overseeing the case committed no foul
under existing law.

In other words, even though the government employed the killer, and
knew he was committing murder, neither the government nor its agents
bear any liability for the deaths of the victims. The fault, according
to the judge’s interpretation of the law, falls completely on another
party: those nasty drug war villains, the narco-traffickers.

>From the judge’s ruling:

    The record reflects the often-cited carne asadas [at the House of
Death] were gruesome murder “parties” conducted by vicious men and
women.

    Considering the record as a whole, this Court concludes that, with
or without Ramirez’s involvement, this is how these types of groups
operate.

    … Even assuming the Defendants [the ICE agents and prosecutor] had
foreknowledge of the murders occurring in Mexico, the Court concludes
the only arguable duty, if any, on their part would have been to notify
Mexican law enforcement.

    However, the Court concludes the evidence fails to show how any of
the Defendants played a part in creating the circumstances leading to
the murders or did anything to render the Plaintiffs [the victims] more
vulnerable to such circumstances.

ICE officials did, in fact, inform the Mexican government of the first
House of Death murder, but claimed their informant had only “witnessed”
a murder in Juarez — when he, in fact, supervised and participated in
that murder. So it is clear from that written communication from ICE to
Mexican federal officials that the truth in this case was being
concealed from the Mexican government.

ICE officials in El Paso also informed DEA’s Juarez office about the
first “murder incident” at the House of Death, but ICE did not provide
DEA with sufficient information to identify the location of the house.
In addition, ICE officials in El Paso refused to allow the informant to
assist DEA with locating the house because they claimed it would
jeopardize the safety of their informant.

Had the DEA been furnished with the location of the House of Death and
if the Mexican government had been made aware that the informant
participated in the first murder, could it not be argued that actions
might have been taken by DEA or the Mexican government to prevent
future murders at the House of Death, or does that not matter?

Apparently not, according to Judge Montalvo’s interpretation of the
law. It appears there’s nothing wrong, at last in a legal sense, with
the government employing an informant who participates in murder,
particularly if the murders are going to happen anyway.

After all, people are killed every day in the drug war, so why should
it matter?

Legal Shortcomings

To be fair to the judge, the case presented to him by the families’
attorney, Raul Loya of Dallas, arguably could have been wrapped in a
better package.

It might be that Loya was simply outgunned by the array of lawyers
lined up against him — by the government’s stable of esquires and the
attorneys for the individual defendants. It seems clear that the
evidence he mustered to the families’ cause, based on the judge’s own
admonishment, was, to some degree, lacking in legal fine tuning.

>From Judge Montalvo’s ruling:

    The Court here takes the unusual step of issuing the following
admonishment to Plaintiffs’ counsel Mr. Raul Loya (“Attorney Loya”).
Throughout their filings, Plaintiffs make numerous factual allegations
which are not supported by the documentary evidence claimed. In
deciding the instant motions, the Court checked every single allegation
against the documentary evidence and found numerous discrepancies. The
Court cautions Plaintiffs’ counsel that it will not tolerate misleading
statements and sanctions will result for any further such conduct.

However, in light of some new evidence that surfaced only days prior to
the judge making his ruling (and which he did not consider as part of
his ruling), it is clear that there is now some reason to believe that
the government might have been less than forthcoming in its own
pleadings in the case.

That is a factor which also must be considered in passing judgment on
Montalvo’s ruling — and it will be discussed further in a bit.

To date, the government and its agents, for their part, contend that
they did not know, nor could they have foreseen, that the informant
would be involved in future murders at the House of Death after the
first murder.

Apparently, they were ignorant of what the judge presumed in his ruling
is a given, that “this is how these types of groups [narco-traffickers,
whom the ICE informant worked for at the House of Death] operate.”

At a minimum, ICE agents most certainly were aware that the informant
was charged with overseeing the burial of the bodies at the House of
Death, since they actually allowed him to return to Juarez after the
first murder to pay the gravedigger. In fact, that gravedigger later
told the DEA that the informant was present for at least five of the
murders at the House of Death.

In some cases, the informant even purchased lime in advance of the
murders to aid in decomposing the bodies he was to bury. You would
think that might have made someone at ICE at least a bit suspicious
about their informant’s activities at the House of Death.

The informant describes a second murder at the House of Death, at which
he was present, in a February 2004 statement he provided to Mexican
authorities:

    At that point, [Mexican police commander Miguel] Loya told them to
lift their shirts over their faces so that they wouldn’t’ see the boss
[Santillan]. At that point, Loya put tape around their heads, but they
could still breathe and one of them began to moan loudly, so Loya shot
him in the head with a pistol with a silencer, but he didn’t die
immediately. Upon hearing this the other one began to struggle and was
shot in the head as well. After they were dead, Alex and I put them
under the staircase of the Parsioneros house [the House of Death] and
later they were buried.

If you or I engaged in that activity, might we not expect to be deemed
accomplices to murder in the court of world opinion?

In light of these facts, it is not unfair to entertain the possibility
that the judge was predisposed — due to political allegiances or
relationships (perhaps just his human nature) — to grasp at any legal
theory, no matter how thin, to dispose of the litigation and the
embarrassment it represented to the administration that put him on the
bench.

But I can only raise these matters as questions, possibilities, and lay
out the bare facts as they exist, or can be discerned, from the
convoluted course of this particular odyssey in U.S. jurisprudence — as
should be the role of a free press. Ultimately, though, it is up to
you, kind reader, to draw your own conclusions.

In all of it, though, you should consider that what might be most
lacking in our justice system is a fundamental, horse-sense notion of
fairness and truth. Instead, it seems, justice in this nation leans in
favor of the party that can marshal to its side the most money and
power to twist the truth into a partisan advantage under a putrid
smokescreen of elitist intellectual sophistry.

In simple terms, as you reflect on the House of Death, ask yourself: If
the murder victims had been upper-class white Canadians with families
in Detroit, instead of poor Mexicans with families in El Paso, might
the lawyers for the victims have been more effective and might the
judge in the case have been more inclined to interpret the law in their
favor?

That assumes a double standard in the U.S. justice system, but then
that is not a new proposition.

A double standard on the truth, however, is a hypocrisy (a forked
tongue) — which seems to be a major theme slithering through policies
that define the war on drugs. And make no mistake about it, the House
of Death provides us with a front-row view of the serpentine underbelly
of that “war.”

Bush’s Bench

Judge Montalov is arguably a judicial product of the Bush
administration. He was appointed to the bench in 2003 by President Bush
and is one of only four U.S. District Court judges in El Paso — which
is part of the federal Western District of Texas. Prior to his
appointment to the federal bench, Montalvo served as state of Texas
district court judge in San Antonio, Texas.

One of his former colleagues in the Alamo City offers high praise for
Montalvo in a story that appeared in the El Paso Times:

    ”His integrity is impeachable," said State District Court Judge
David Peeples of San Antonio. "I think he's a straight-shooter, as
straight as they come.”

Montalvo is not alone in having connections to San Antonio. Johnny
Sutton, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas, also is
based in San Antonio. Sutton’s office played a key role in the House of
Death since it was responsible for prosecuting the case that was being
put together by ICE with the help of their informant.  

In fact, one of Sutton’s Assistant U.S. Attorneys, Juanita Fielden, was
named as a defendant in the lawsuit filed by the families of the House
of Death victims.

The former agent in command of DEA’s El Paso office, Sandalio Gonzalez,
has accused Sutton of working to cover up the full extent of the
government’s role in the House of Death murders. Gonzalez recently was
awarded a $385,000 by the Department of Justice as part of a legal
settlement that was related, in part, to Sutton’s alleged role in that
cover-up effort.

To this day, a joint DEA/ICE investigation into the House of Death,
called the JAT report, has been suppressed by both agencies, despite
efforts to seek its release through Freedom of Information Act
requests.  

Sutton, a close friend of President Bush, was appointed U.S. Attorney
in San Antonio in 2001, and so would have served in that post at the
same time as Montalvo was a Texas state judge in the city. Both, then,
owe their positions to President Bush, whose administration could face
great embarrassment, and potential legal liability, if it were
determined that the U.S. government was complicit in the House of Death
murders.

But those facts alone do not prove that Montalvo might be inclined
toward prejudice in his handling of the families’ House of Death
litigation. After all, judges are presumed to be impartial when it
comes to matters before their courts.

But at least one person has taken issue with Montalvo’s courtroom
judgment in a separate case that is related to the House of Death.

Not in my Courtroom

Attorney Mark Conrad, a former high-level supervisor with U.S. Customs
(which has since become part of ICE), was twice denied permission by
Montalvo to represent a client, ICE employee Renae Baros, in his court.

In both cases, Montalvo refused to grant Conrad “pro hac vice”standing
in the court without any explanation. (Pro hac vice standing is a
temporary status granted to an attorney who seeks to represent a client
in a jurisdiction in which he is not currently practicing law. Conrad
is a member in good standing with the federal Southern District of
Texas, but not licensed in the federal Western District of Texas.)

Conrad appealed Montalvo’s decision to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals, which then ordered Montalvo to re-examine his decision.
Montalvo did just that, reversing his refusal to grant Conrad standing.
Montalvo then removed himself from the Baros case and another judge was
appointed.

>From Montalvo’s Jan. 22, 2007, decision in the matter:

    … After carefully reviewing the Fifth Circuit’s opinion, the Court
finds that it should reconsider its earlier decision regarding Conrad’s
motion to appear pro hac vice.

    … Accordingly, the Court finds it should allow Conrad to practice
before the Court in this case [the Baros case].

    … In addition, to dispel any concerns or appearances that might
arise from [my] future rulings in this case, the Court recuses itself
from this matter.

    Accordingly, the Clerk of this Court shall immediately transfer
this [case] to the docket of United States District Judge Harry Lee
Hudspeth.

Now this may all appear to be little more than legal minutia to those
who are not attorneys. But in this case, Conrad’s request to represent
Baros promised to be a bit of a thorn in the side of the government
with respect to the House of Death. So it might not be considered
unreasonable, if we accept that a cover-up is in play, to question
whether the Bush administration sought to call in some chips to assure
Conrad was kept at bay.

Baros’ litigation accuses ICE of discriminating and retaliating against
her after she reported that an ICE supervisor had sexual harassed her.
In her lawsuit, Baros alleges that ICE supervisor Patricia Kramer was
one of the major perpetrators of the discrimination and retaliation.
And remember, Kramer also is named as a defendant in the litigation
brought by the families of the victims of the House of Death.

Prior to recusing himself from the Baros case, Montalvo was sitting in
judgment for both cases, and should have been very well aware of the
Kramer connection from the pleadings entered in both cases.

And Conrad, as part of his legal work on the Baros case, has since
brought to light damaging new allegations related to Kramer and ICE
supervisor Compton (also a defendant in the families litigation) that
have a direct bearing on the House of Death.

Specifically, recent pleadings in the Baros lawsuit, filed in El Paso,
claim that Kramer “falsified government documents to improperly pay
government informants.” The pleadings also assert that she demonstrated
a callous indifference to the House of Death murder victims by
referring to them as “just Mexicans.”  

Government attorneys in the Baros case, in response to the allegation
that Kramer falsified documents, submitted documents to the judge in
the case for his private inspection.

On Aug. 20, the judge stated the following in a ruling that precludes
the Kramer evidence from being used in the Baros case:

    … The Defendant [the government] has now produced for the Court’s
inspection a report of an [ICE] internal agency investigation which
occurred in late 2004 [while the House of Death criminal case was still
being litigated]; a memorandum signed by Acting Special Agent in Charge
Jesus Torres; and a settlement agreement to which Kramer was party.

    The 2004 investigation and the Torres memorandum dealt with
allegations that Kramer, whose title was Associate Special Agent in
Charge in the El Paso [ICE] office, had failed to comply with certain
agency rules and policies in connection with one particular criminal
investigation [not described].

    The Torres memorandum proposed her removal from the service.

    Neither the report of investigation nor the Torres memorandum
accused Kramer of “the falsification of government documents.”

    … One of the terms of the settlement agreement was that the
proposed removal was rescinded [and Kramer subsequently retired from
ICE].”

With respect to Compton, pleadings in the Baros litigation allege that
he failed to “timely report” information related to the House of Death
case and also, in a separate matter, that he engaged in violence in the
workplace, misused a government vehicle and made “false statements” to
government investigators.

In addition, an ICE internal affairs supervisor, testified under oath
that the agency subsequently “re-colored,” or whitewashed, Compton’s
disciplinary record, which resulted in him receiving only a one-day
suspension.

Given the allegation in the Baros lawsuit that ICE supervisor Compton
has a past track record of making false statements to law enforcement
agents, Compton’s credibility with respect to his claims of ignorance
in the House of Death murders might now be deemed suspect.

Likewise, as a result of the Baros lawsuit, now in question is the
veracity of Kramer, who, according to a federal judge, committed a
violation of ICE rules related to a criminal investigation that was
serious enough for an ICE commander to recommend her removal from the
agency.

And given the whitewashing allegations raised in the Compton case, it
is hard for us to really know if the full story on Kramer’s proposed
dismissal was presented to the judge in the Baros case.  

In any event, it is clear that Conrad’s prowess as an attorney has
helped to reveal some disturbing allegations about two of the ICE
agents who were central to the House of Death.

The Inside Game

Judge Montalvo (and the Bush administration attorneys) likely would
have known from the Baros pleadings that Conrad would be in a position
to probe into the records of key ICE players in the House of Death case
and potentially expose information harmful to the government’s efforts
to bury the House of Death. That has to be considered when assessing
Judge Montalvo’s treatment of Conrad and his two denials, without
explanation, of Conrad’s application for pro hac vice standing in the
Baros case.

Again, this does not prove any quid pro quo arrangement between
Montalvo and Bush administration officials, but as a public servant
employed by the citizens, Montalvo also should not be given a free pass
from scrutiny with respect to his judicial actions — particularly if
they create an appearance of a conflict of interest.

And clearly, the government’s lawyers were concerned about Conrad’s
ability to cause them heartburn over the House of Death, since in the
Baros pleadings themselves, the government’s attorneys advanced the
following argument in seeking a protective order to prevent Conrad from
questioning Kramer and ICE supervisor Compton about their disciplinary
records:

>From the government’s motion for a protective order in the Baros case:

    … Kramer and Compton are named defendants in a civil lawsuit [filed
by the families of the victims of the House of Death] the basis of
which arose during their tenure in El Paso. …

    To the extent that any disciplinary history may exist, there is a
likely possibility that this information may unfairly be used in an
effort to undermine Ms. Kramer’s and Mr. Compton’s legal rights in the
lawsuit….

    [The government’s attorneys fail to note, though, that the
government itself was a defendant in the families’ litigation.]

Adding to the note of concern on this front is the fact that Judge
Montalvo issued his ruling dismissing the families claims in the House
of Death litigation on Aug. 20, only six days after Conrad filed
pleadings in court on the Baros case exposing the troubling allegations
about Kramer and Compton. This coincidence in the timing of the judge’s
ruling assured that the new evidence could not be further explored in
the families’ lawsuit.

Parlor Tricks

Even if it could be shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that the
government, or its agents, knowingly broke the law in the House of
Death mass murder, and are still working to cover-up that fact, I
suspect there would be some arcane legal theory that could be stretched
over the truth to project the illusion of justice.

That underlying truth, though, is hard to sidestep, despite all the
government’s legal rationalizations to date.

The truth is that an informant, employed by the U.S. government and
under the supervision of federal agents and U.S. prosecutors, assisted
and participated in mass murder in Juarez, Mexico.

Over the past three years of covering the House of Death mass murder, I
have experience many emotions, both high and low, and entertained
numerous thoughts and theories about what this tragedy says about our
country and it’s relentless, hopeless drug war.

I have finally come to this conclusion: It doesn’t matter what our
bought-and-paid-for courts, Congress, White House and mainstream media
say or do anymore. They are all playing a parlor game that has nothing
to do with the interest of the common citizen and everything to do with
the interest of the privileged few – first and foremost themselves.

What matters, I’ve determined, is what we the people think, say and do.
We are the first, and last, hope for our democracy. If most of us
determine something should change, that maybe truth and equal justice
should matter, then the parlor game that excludes us from our own
country will come to an end — and even the so-called war on drugs is
not immune from that result.

Absent that kind of power to the people, I, and you, kind reader, have
to come to grips with what one former federal agent said of Judge
Montalvo’s recent ruling in the families’ House of Death lawsuit:

    It is an absurd ruling, but one that is indicative of the special
corrupt relationship many politicians have with Mexico. Both nations
simply didn't give a shit — because they are just Mexicans! What a
travesty.

Stay tuned...


ADDENDUM posted by Bill Conroy - Aug 26, 2007

The judge’s ruling in the families’ House of Death lawsuit outlines a
major premise of the government’s case that is provably inaccurate, but
which the judge failed to address in his ruling — likely because the
evidence revealing its inaccuracy was not considered as part of the
case. 

FULL RULING HERE:
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/userfiles/70/HofDvictimsRuling.pdf


The following is the judge’s summary of the government’s position on
the matter:

    In general, the Defendants [the government] contend Plaintiffs [the
families of the House of Death victims] simply reiterate the
allegations of former DEA Special Agent in Charge Sandalio Gonzalez
(“SAC Gonzalez”). SAC Gonzales was upset after the identities of his
two DEA undercover agents in Juarez were disclosed and lives
jeopardized when they were confronted by corrupt Mexican law
enforcement working for the VCFO [Vicente Carrillo Fuentes
Organization].

    SAC Gonzalez suspected that [the informant] Ramirez had disclosed
the agents’ identity while working for ICE. SAC Gonzales challenged
many of the Defendants when he learned ICE agents allegedly failed to
share information with the DEA because of a mistrust of DEA officials.

    “With this backdrop, Gonzales (by all accounts a non-witness to the
relevant facts of this Complaint) wrote of his understanding of the
events [in a memo sent to his ICE counterpart and also received by U.S.
Attorney Johnny Sutton] which, in his personal opinion, led to the
compromise of his agents’ identity and how that scenario could have
been avoided.”

    Defendants [the government] submit that SAC Gonzales’s unfounded
conclusions supply the basis of the Plaintiffs’ [the families']
baseless Amended Complaint.

[FYI: The judge mispelled Gonzalez' name in his ruling.]

The memo Gonzalez wrote, which the government dismissed as the
“opinion” of a disgruntled DEA employee, was, in fact, an accurate
rendering of the facts of the situation, according to two high-level
DEA employees who testified to that fact under oath.

That testimony was provided as part of Gonzalez’ lawsuit against the
Department of Justice in which he claimed he was subjected to
discrimination and retaliation, in part, due to his decision to write
the memo. A jury returned a verdict in favor of Gonzalez in that case
and he recently was awarded $385,000 as part of a settlement with the
government.

Following are excerpts from the testimony provided in Gonzalez’ case by
Michele Leonhart, the deputy administrator of DEA, and Mike Furgason,
the former chief of operations at DEA. This testimony relates
specifically to the Gonzalez House of Death memo — referred to as a
letter below:

    Q Now, what was your reaction, sir, when you found out about this
letter?

    Furgason: I was a little surprised. I mean, the way I found out
about it, I was contacted initially about it by the United States
Attorney's Office in San Antonio [Sutton’s office] who asked if I knew
about this letter. I said, no, I was not, I wasn't aware of it. And
then of course it wasn't long after that I was contacted by the
Department of Justice by the deputy attorney general's office [James
Comey’s office] and asked if I knew about the letter, and I said, no, I
wasn't.  And I was a little disappointed in the way I found out. And,
frankly, I was a little disappointed that it was written.

    Q Was it an embarrassment to you?  

    Furgason: Well, yeah. I mean because the day before I had briefed
the attorney general [Ashcroft] and deputy attorney general [Comey]
that we had a fact-finding team that had just returned, they were
preparing a report, and as soon as the report was finished, I would
come back and brief them on what was, you know, found and provide them
a copy of the report. And I might add, too, that while I was briefing
the attorney general, John Clark, my counterpart [at ICE] was briefing
the heads of Homeland Security, I think [Tom] Ridge at the time and Asa
Hutcheson [then head of DHS’ Directorate of Border and Transportation
Security and former head of the DEA]. So it was at the highest levels
of these particular departments we were briefing them because it was a
serious incident down in Juarez that could have potential ramifications
between our governments [Mexico and the United States, since most of
the murder victims were Mexican citizens], and they needed to know and
they needed to know what was accurate. So it was somewhat embarrassing
as I left their office that I find out that a letter had been written
sort of outlining a lot of the facts that the [still unreleased joint
DEA/ICE JAT] team had uncovered. [emphasis added]

The fact that Furgason concedes Gonzalez’ letter (read it again here
was accurate on the facts, the same facts the JATwas uncovering, is a
powerful statement on the extent of the House of Death cover-up.

>From Leonhart’s under-oath testimony:

    Q And if they don't like the consequences, it's not Mr. Gonzalez's
fault, is it? He didn't cause it.

    Leonhart: Mr. Gonzalez, by writing the letter [to his counterpart
at ICE and U.S. Attorney Sutton], it was at an inappropriate time, it
was inflammable. It was nothing new. It was information that we already
knew and had relayed to the highest levels of the DOJ, Department of
Justice and ICE. [emphasis added]

    [Again, an admission that Gonzalez’ letter was on the money, yet
the cover-up continues.]

    It was unnecessary. And it caused friction, distrust amongst the
agencies, and it's been harder for our new SAC [special agent in
charge] to work there because of it [because of the truth].

DEA commander Gonzalez, whose letter to ICE and Sutton suggests through
the facts conveyed that some government officials might well be
criminally culpable for their actions in the House of Death case, was
retaliated against, ordered to remain silent and eventually retired
early from DEA — in large part because of that retaliation.

>From the Gonzalez House of Death memo to his ICE counterpart, Special
Agent in Charge Giovanni Gaudioso, who was a defendant in the families'
House of Death lawsuit:

    It was not until our [DEA’s] Chief of Operations [Furgason] met
with his counterpart in your agency [ICE] that you agreed to allow our
agents direct access to the [informant]; however, you then placed
restrictions on that access that are inconsistent with both the spirit
of cooperation that should exist between our two agencies, and with
good law enforcement practices and procedures. Your reasoning for doing
this was that, in your view, DEA agents were targeting the [informant]
and you could not allow that to happen.

    [In other words, the informant was suspected of commiting crimes —
murder in this case — and ICE, believing DEA was "targeting" the
informant,  decided to obstruct  DEA's ability to investigate those
crimes.]

    In light of that, we cannot help but wonder why you would go to
such extreme lengths to protect this “homicidal maniac” informant.

    In fact, the procedures employed in the handling of this informant,
the fact your agents continued working with him after he tried to run a
100 pound load of marijuana behind our back last June [2003, before the
first House of Death murder], and his incredible story after he tape
recorded the murder of Fernando [the first House of Death murder
victim], leads me to conclude that the informant may have been
controlling the agents.

     [ICE] agents allowed the [informant] to continue on an unabated
crime spree while under their so-called control.

    … It appears to me, after reading the statement given by the
[informant] to the Mexican authorities, that the [informant’s ICE]
handlers may have known about the “carne asada” [murder party]
scheduled for January 14th, and perhaps others prior to that.

    This of course begs the question: if the killers had not called the
[informant] to check on our agents on January 14th [to determine who
they were], how many more dead bodies would we have now?

Those are the facts, which the judge seems to consider unimportant in
this case, or at least irrelevant. The government dismisses them as
“opinion” for the purposes of the families’ lawsuit but describes them
as “facts” for the purposes of Gonzalez’ lawsuit.

Is it unreasonable to conclude, then, that both the judge and the
government could care less if the next time this situation arises, and
it surely will, that it’s no big deal if DEA agents (and their
families) are, in fact, tortured and murdered?

After all, based on the judge’s ruling, people die all the time in the
drug war, and the government can’t be held liable for the actions of
“third parties,” like those evil narco-traffickers — even if one of the
government's paid informants is a “homicidal maniac.”