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.
I for one would have preffered the approach of a live thread.
The OP could then at message one familiarized the masses with a first post and those interested would monitor.
This would keep the clutter down.
Is this a trick question? A: It does not fit their agenda.
Posting all updates on one thread would be better than posting 17 threads on the same subject within a few hours of each other.
You can excerpt news stories with a link in reply posts.
If any of your screeds at the website links are quotes from various news sources they must be acknowledged and hot linked if posted at FR.
If they are all your own words you may take credit.
Thanks.
Watch your mouth.
“We’re not interested.”
“we” as in the government lackeys and boot lickers?
I am a gunsmith and own a gunshop. I am very interested. You presume much when you speak for others.
I like the blogs on this trial, because the Reeses could be anyone of us.
The Reese’s are ordinary people, who notified the sheriff about a suspect buyer, who turned out to be a drugdealer, illegal arms buyer, and snitch for DEA.
I totally agree with you it could be any of us!
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