Posted on 07/31/2012 8:06:22 AM PDT by marktwain
Monday, cross-examination of the government’s star witness, Mexican cartel Jose Roman, who functioned in an organizational capacity. Roman started his career in crime at the age of 17 running illegal aliens from the border up towards Deming. He moved up to drug smuggling and later moved further up into gun & ammo running. Although he is now 31 years old, he claims he wasn’t paid any money for his years of criminal activity. Roman testified on the contrary, the cartel stole his money — money he was paid by the government to take care of his father in Deming (some $800-$1000 per month).
Under direct examination, Jose Roman did not use an interpreter most of the time. Under cross-examination he has resorted to using an interpreter. So far the defense has exposed inconsistency after inconsistency in his testimony. He was shown testimony from prior dates and asked to read his prior testimony and statements out loud, followed by the defense attorneys asking him if he lied before or if he was lying on Monday. Roman claims that his testimony on Monday was the truth.
In one example of many, Roman testified he would smuggle the guns the same day and then return to the US 2 or 3 days later thru the Columbus station. However, the Customs & Immigration records failed to reveal dates that would substantiate his testmony on all but one occassion. In another example, Roman testified he didn’t move up the ladder to gun smuggling until after the 3rd load of drugs being smuggled into the US was intercepted by law enforcement in August 2010. However, it should be noted that Penny Torres claims she started straw purchasing guns for Roman in April of 2010 and ended the straw purchasing in August 2010 when Terri Reese called the local Sheriff’s office to report her suspicions.
Roman has a plea agreement with the government to provide complete and truthful information against the Mexican Cartel in exchange for what defense attorney described as setting up the Reeses. In exchange for his cooperation against the Reese’s, Roman pled guilty to a much smaller drug conspiracy charge than the amount of drug smuggling he admitted to on the witness stand yesterday and to providing false statements to New Deal employees. The government did not charge him with posession of a machine gun, or gun smuggling, or with the total amount of drugs he smuggled, or alien smuggling, or any of the other crimes he admitted to on the stand. Information also came out about hand grenades. It is unknown if the government will charge him with perjury for any of the statements he made yesterday. Roman admitted numerous times he is hoping for a reduced sentence for his participation in the New Deal case. The current charges against him have a sentence ranging from 5 to 8 years approximately. If the government had charged him with the rest of the crimes, the sentence for this Mexican Cartel member/organizer would be substantially higher. Instead, he has been able to pawn off his potential years in jail onto the Reese family if they are convicted.
Roman has been stopped by law enforcement a number of times over his years of criminal activity, but admitted that he was able to lie his way out of being charged with any crimes.
During cross-examination, Roman admitted he has only provided nick-names of cartel members claiming he doesn’t know the real names. He also hasn’t provided addresses of stash houses and other information about the cartel activities. The defense has painted a picture so far of Roman doing more to protect the cartel than provide truthful and complete information.
Cross-examination of Roman continues today.
The Reese family was held without bail for six months. All of their assets were seized and they were not allowed to coordinate their defense until publicity about the case in the new media got them new lawyers and some public scrutiny.
OK, let’s knock it off with the minute-by-minute blogs.
We’re not interested.
You’ve started 14 threads (or more - I may have missed one) on this topic in the past couple of hours???
Give us a break!
I just found this source. I think many people on the banglist are interested in this trial. They are now up to date.
Give us a break.
Put all the info in one thread, please. Easier to keep up that way....
Many people complain if you excerpt sources when you do not have to. This post has now brought the trial reporting up to date. There will likely be only one or two posts per day on the subject in the future.
Who’s “we”, jackwagon? I’m interested.
/johnny
Seventeen (17) posts from 9:35 to 11:06.
Why can’t we get the main stream media that interested about the “history” of Obama.
/johnny
Friggin’ nooobs....
” Funny how all the whiners joined up after 2000. “
Really?? Do you really want to play the “old-timers” card???
Anybody who’s been around FR for more than a month knows about “Live Threads” with updates...
I expected better from you, JRandom... ;)
....says a guy who joined 12/30/1999.
I just posted a whole series of reports from the Reese family trial (alleged straw sales to Mexican Drug cartels). Use your judgement if you think the Gunwalker / Murdergate ping list would be interested.
Marktwain, keep up the good work. I for one appreciate your updates. This case is an absolute tragedy that otherwise gets little coverage.
I agree. No one forces you to click on a link. If there is no interest the topic will quickly die.
I was having a hard time finding coverage until I found these citizen reports. They seem much better than the little MSM coverage the case was getting.
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