Federal prosecutors are considering bringing criminal charges against an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who is accused of shooting a Venezuelan immigrant in the leg during the Trump administration’s federal immigration surge in Minnesota in January, according to multiple sources familiar with the deliberations.
The officer, Christian Castro, was charged in May by local prosecutors in Minnesota, and faces four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime after the January incident. Castro was arrested in Texas shortly afterwards and is currently in a jail in Cameron County, but Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has refused to extradite him to Minnesota.
Last week, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison sued Abbott, arguing that the state’s move was unlawful. There is a federal court hearing Tuesday in Texas to determine whether Castro will be extradited.
One possible charge being explored by federal prosecutors is a civil rights offense, which makes it a crime for someone acting in an official capacity “under color of law” to violate a person’s constitutional rights, such as through the use of excessive force, two of the sources told CBS News. Prosecutors are also examining 18 USC 1001, which makes it a crime to knowingly make false statements to the government.
CBS News has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.
CNN was first to report on the possible federal charges against Castro.
Inconsistent statements about incident
In January, the two men, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna and Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, were charged in a federal criminal complaint with forcibly assaulting, resisting or impeding federal officers in performance of their official duties. Sosa-Celis had been shot by an ICE officer, which drew nationwide attention amid the federal immigration surge in Minnesota.
Federal charges against the two men were dropped in February, after the Justice Department said it had uncovered “newly discovered evidence” that was “materially inconsistent” with the allegations against them. The charges were dismissed with prejudice, meaning they cannot be reintroduced.
The potential criminal charge of lying to the government would stem from false statements that Castro allegedly made when he shot Sosa-Celis in the leg.
Todd Lyons, the former head of ICE, said that two officers, including Castro, were placed on administrative leave after a review of video evidence during the incident indicated they provided “untruthful statements” in their sworn testimony.
From early on, however, the government’s account of the alleged assault has not been consistent, mixing up the two immigrants and even adding another man to its version of events.
A day after the shooting, the Department of Homeland Security said Sosa-Celis had fled the scene of a “targeted traffic stop” in Minneapolis in his vehicle, crashed into a parked car and continued to flee on foot. When an ICE agent caught up with Sosa-Celis and attempted to detain him, two men emerged from a nearby apartment and attacked the agent with a broom handle and snow shovel, DHS alleged. Sosa-Celis allegedly broke free and also started striking the officer. DHS said an officer then fired a “defensive shot to defend his life.” Sosa-Celis and the two men ran into an apartment but were later taken into custody, DHS said.
But in an affidavit to support charges against the two men, the FBI said that Aljorna — not Sosa-Celis — had fled the scene in a car, and that Sosa-Celis was the one who initially struck the ICE officer with a broomstick while Castro tried to arrest Aljorna. The FBI alleged that it was Aljorna who then broke free and started attacking the ICE officer with the same broomstick. The affidavit also says that the officer “had poor or sporadic lighting” and “had difficulty seeing the assailants.”
And in a cellphone video from the moments after the shooting that was shared online by a state lawmaker, a woman appears to tell a 911 operator that her husband was chased by ICE agents before he reached his home, and was shot in front of his family.
In April, another ICE officer was charged with assault after allegedly pointing a gun at two people on a Minneapolis highway in February. The officer, Gregory Morgan Jr., filed a motion last month to move his case from state to federal court, arguing his status as a federal officer grants him the ability to be tried at the federal level.