 Monica Ramos embraces her husband, former U.S. Border Patrol agent Ignacio Ramos, two days before he was sentenced to 11 years in prison (Courtesy El Paso Times) |
While former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean sit in federal prison cells, waiting the passage of more than a decade of punishment for using their guns to shoot at a fleeing illegal alien drug smuggler, there’s no comment from the White House on the issue of executive clemency.
Presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino responded today to a question from Les Kinsolving, WND’s correspondent at the White House.
Kinsolving asked: “What was the president’s reaction to Texas Republican U.S. Sen. and former judge [John] Cornyn’s call on the president to commute what he called the unjust sentences of Texans Ramos and Compean?”
“As I said, we haven’t talked about that case from here. We don’t talk about pardons from the podium,” Perino replied.
Her response was consistent with several other times the issue of the Border Patrol agents was raised at White House news conferences.
Ramos and Compean are serving 11- and 12-year prison sentences, respectively, for shooting an illegal alien drug dealer while he smuggled nearly 750 pounds of marijuana across the border. The agents were convicted of assault, discharge of a weapon in the commission of a crime of violence and deprivation of civil rights.
U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton’s office gave the smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, full immunity from prosecution for agreeing to serve as the government’s star witness and testify against the border agents. A ruling, from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals, affirmed all convictions except for tampering with an official proceeding, which it vacated and remanded for resentencing.
While Aldrete-Davila was waiting to testify against the agents, he also was involved in another drug smuggling case, but that information was withheld from jurors in the Ramos-Compean trial.
Eventually, the smuggler was sentenced for the second case, but his sentence was considerably shorter than that of the agents who tried to halt his activities in the previous episode.
Ramos’ attorney, David Botsworth, said a petition for writ of certiorari was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court and docketed Dec. 11. The government has the right to file a response should it choose to do so this month.
WND has reported on the status of the families left behind when the agents were sent to prison, most recently describing an “attempted hit” on the Ramos family.
Ramos’ wife said someone broke into their El Paso home and filled it with gas, trashing photographs and pummeling their dog.
Just weeks after Monica Ramos spoke with WND about the difficulty of enduring Christmas without her husband, her family returned from visiting Ignacio in prison on Jan 3. While she was away, burglars stole DVDs, a BB gun and cell phone and slashed her couch with a knife.
The intruders even beat her dog and ripped cherished wedding pictures and family photos off the walls, smashing them on the ground.
But the vandalism wasn’t the worst part, Monica revealed in a Jan. 12 BlogTalkRadio interview just before she left again to visit her husband.
“It wasn’t so much that stuff was burglarized or that they actually took much,” she said. “What was really hard was that when we got here, the gas was turned on. It was very intentional in that somebody was trying to hurt us.”
Her son opened the front door and discovered the strong odor.
“Right away he alerted me,” she said. “He started yelling, ‘Mom, don’t walk in. Don’t bring my brothers.’ He said, ‘The gas is on!’ He ran in and started turning everything off.”
Monica’s father, Joe Loya, wrote on his blog, “Thank God no one turned on a light! Monica and her three boys would be gone!”
Monica said she believes the gas was left on for two days.
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