Pay up Iran, the victim’s families deserve compensation. Obama and Kerry gave you billions.
ToI: Newly analyzed DNA evidence from the 1994 AMIA Jewish center bombing in Buenos Aires could provide a definitive link to suicide bomber Ibrahim Berro, the Hezbollah terrorist who carried out the attack and whose body was never found or identified until now.
NBC
The discovery was announced on Monday by the AMIA Special Investigation Unit of the Argentinian General Prosecution, two weeks before the 23rd anniversary of the bombing that killed 85 and injured hundreds.
The final report after two years of investigation by a forensics team, reveals for the first time the existence of a genetic profile among the preserved remains in the laboratory of the Federal Police that “doesn’t belong to any known victims.”
With this information prosecutors have taken steps “in the field of international cooperation to try to match the profile obtained with that of samples of relatives of the suspected individual.”
A man walks over the rubble after a bomb exploded at the Argentinian Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 1994. (AFP/Ali Burafi)
In 2005 special prosecutor Alberto Nisman identified Berro as the suicide bomber who carried out the attack. Berro’s brothers denied he was involved, claiming he was killed in fighting in Lebanon. Some Argentinian journalists also cast doubt on the assertion.
In May 2016, US Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI director James Comey met in Washington, DC, with Argentine Justice Minister Germán Garavano and offered to extend technical help to the Argentinean Justice Department regarding the AMIA attack and the death of Nisman.
Prosecutors Sabrina Namer, Roberto Salum and Leonardo Filippini have led the AMIA Special Investigatory Unit since their predecessor Nisman was discovered shot dead in his apartment in January 2015, hours before he was scheduled to appear in Congress. Nisman had been about to present allegations that then-President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner orchestrated a secret deal to cover up Iranian officials’ alleged role in the AMIA bombing. Fernandez denied the allegations and judges threw out the case. It was reopened one year ago, though no conclusions have yet been announced.
Late Argentinean public prosecutor Alberto Nisman gives a news conference in Buenos Aires, May 20, 2009. (Juan Mabromata/AFP/Getty Images)
The two years work on the DNA analysis was conducted by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, the Forensic Medical Body and the University of Buenos Aires. The same team one year ago identified victim number 85 of the AMIA attack.
***
Clarin
Per documents posted on Wikipedia:
Berro grew up in Lebanon. According to his brothers, around 1989 he changed radically, leaving school and becoming interested in Hezbollah, where his brother Ali was an active member. His mother feared Berro would end up badly, and applied for a visa for him to go to Detroit — to where some of the family had emigrated — but the application was turned down because Berro was underage. He then traveled to Iran, where he presumably received training.
Berro is suspected of having entered Argentina near Ciudad del Este — a region known for smuggling, drugs, and other illegal activities — where Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina share a border, accompanied by a man named Ahmed Saad.
The bombing, in which a van full of explosives opposite the AMIA building was detonated, was similar to the March 1992 Israeli Embassy attack in Buenos Aires, possibly also committed by Hezbollah. The attacks, it appears, occurred with the support of Iran,[3] though the Iranian government repeatedly denied these charges.[4]
Two months after the attack, Berro was reported by radio stations in Lebanon to have been killed by the Israeli army, apparently an attempt to cover up his role in the attack in Argentina. After the bombing, Berro’s wife received $300 a month from Hezbollah.[5]
In late 2005, Berro was identified as the bombing perpetrator after years of investigation and speculation into who committed the bombing. According to official Argentine government prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, Hussein’s two US-based brothers had testified that he had joined the radical Shia militant group Hezbollah. “The brothers’ testimony was substantial, rich in detail and showed that he was the one who was killed,” Nisman added.[6] A U.S. House resolution in July 2004 declared Berro was the suicide bomber,[7] but the identification was not declared positively until November 2005 after Berro’s relatives in Detroit identified his photograph. Berro was also recognized with “80 percent certain[ty]” [8] by eyewitness Nicolasa Romero, who saw the driver in the van near the AMIA building. Some Argentine journalists, however, have expressed reservations about these alleged findings; in an op-ed for La Nación, Jorge Urien Berri objected to those who “insist in taken hypotheses as proven when they not”, and contested Berro’s involvement in the incidents”.[9] Berro’s two brothers also had denied this version in April 2005 before a US prosecutor, stating that Berro had died on September 9, 1994 during combat in Lebanon. No proper autopsies or DNA tests were done. The police dumped in a bin the head thought to be that of the bomber.[6]
Berro’s brother, after apparently identifying Berro in a photograph, now denies that Berro had any role in the attack. “They changed the truth,” he said. “I gave them the photo [of Berro] at 17 years old, but when I saw photo in the news, I said, ‘How are they publishing the photo that I gave them a few months back? They said in the news that I identified the photo, and it’s not true. I gave them the photo of him at 17, but I don’t know who is in the others.”[8]
In a May 2007 interview, James Cheek, Clinton’s Ambassador to Argentina at the time of the bombing, told La Nación,[10] “To my knowledge, there was never any real evidence [of Iranian responsibility]. They never came up with anything.” The hottest lead in the case, he recalled, was an Iranian defector named Manoucher Moatamer, who “supposedly had all this information.” But Moatamer turned out to be only a dissatisfied low-ranking official without the knowledge of government decision-making that he had claimed. “We finally decided that he wasn’t credible,” Cheek recalled. Ron Goddard, then deputy chief of the US Mission in Buenos Aires, confirmed Cheek’s account. He recalled that investigators found nothing linking Iran to the bombing. “The whole Iran thing seemed kind of flimsy,” Goddard said.
Category Archives: Gangs and Crimes
Finally, a University is Sued over Discrimination
Discrimination is happening at college campuses across the country. Not only is it happening by plots of students, campus selective organizations but it includes university administrators and professors.
Related reading: UC-Berkeley claims right to suppress speech in legal motion
Here comes a lawsuit that just may set legal standing and fire a shot across the bow of other universities. Lawsuits require discovery and once documents as well as electronic communications are submitted, we may see a larger coordination and collusion. Frankly, it could lead to RICO.
BusinessInsider
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, JUNE 19, 2017 — A group of San Francisco State University students and members of the local Jewish community today filed a lawsuit alleging that SFSU has a long and extensive history of cultivating anti-Semitism and overt discrimination against Jewish students. According to the suit, “SFSU and its administrators have knowingly fostered this discrimination and hostile environment, which has been marked by violent threats to the safety of Jewish students on campus.” The plaintiffs are represented by a team of attorneys from The Lawfare Project and the global law firm Winston & Strawn LLP.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California and also names as defendants the Board of Trustees of the California State University System, SFSU President Leslie Wong and several other University officials and employees, alleges that “Jewish students at SFSU have been so intimidated and ostracized that they are afraid to wear Stars of David or yarmulkes on campus.”
The lawsuit was triggered following the alleged complicity of senior university administrators and police officers in the disruption of an April, 2016, speech by the Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat. At that event organized by SF Hillel, Jewish students and audience members were subjected to genocidal and offensive chants and expletives by a raging mob that used bullhorns to intimidate and drown out the Mayor’s speech and physically threaten and intimidate members of the mostly-Jewish audience. At the same time, campus police – including the chief – stood by, on order from senior university administrators who instructed the police to “stand down” despite direct and implicit threats and violations of university codes governing campus conduct.
The lawsuit states that “SFSU has not merely fostered and embraced anti-Jewish hostility -it has systematically supported … student groups as they have doggedly organized their efforts to target, threaten, and intimidate Jewish students on campus and deprive them of their civil rights and their ability to feel safe and secure as they pursue their education at SFSU.” SFSU continues to affirm its preference for those targeting the Jewish community, according to the lawsuit, by claiming to handle such incidents successfully by removing the Jewish students from their lawful assembly without allowing them the opportunity to exercise their free speech rights.”
Making matters worse, no actions were ever taken by SFSU against the disruptive students, no disciplinary charges were ever filed, and no sanctions were ever imposed against the groups or students responsible for committing these acknowledged violations.
“Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the underpinning of the modern American ethos of equal protection and anti-discrimination. This case isn’t about Jews, it’s about equal protection under the law,” says Brooke Goldstein, Lawfare Project Director. “If the courts fail to apply Title VI in this context, we are creating a massive loophole that will ultimately be exploited to target other marginalized minority communities. If we refuse to enforce anti-discrimination law for Jews, if we say Jews don’t deserve equal protection, it will erode constitutional protections for everyone. Jews must be protected the same as any other minority group, or the bedrock of civil rights law will crumble.”
In addition to the disruption of the speech by Nir Barkat, the lawsuit describes a long list of discrimination, intimidation and mistreatment of Jewish students at SFSU. Following are just a few examples:
In 1994, a ten-foot mural was erected on SFSU’s student union building that portrayed yellow Stars of David intertwined with dollar signs, skulls and crossbones, and the words “African Blood.”
In 1997, a banner depicting an Israeli flag with a swastika next to an American flag with a dollar sign was hung over the same wall where the 1994 mural had been painted.
In April of 2002, posters appeared around campus advertising an event called “Genocide in the 21st Century,” featuring a dead baby on the label of a soup can, surrounded on either side by Israeli flags.
In May of 2002, following a Peace rally, a small group of Jewish students were targeted by a large group of students who shouted bigoted and offensive remarks, including “Hitler didn’t finish the job,” “Get out or we’ll kill you,” and “Go back to Russia.”
In 2009, SFSU hosted on-campus events that advocated for the elimination of the Jewish state of Israel.In 2016, President Wong complained that in all his years, he had never seen a university donor withhold a pledge because of a “political issue.” A Jewish Studies faculty member told him, “the physical safety of Jewish students is never a political issue.” President Wong replied, “on this, we will have to agree to disagree.”
In 2017, when specifically asked whether Zionists are welcome at SFSU, President Wong refused to provide the only proper answer: “Yes.” Instead, President Wong demurred, stating “That’s one of those categorical statements I can’t get close to. . . . Am I comfortable opening up the gates to everyone? Gosh, of course not.”
While SFSU actively supports virulently anti-Jewish and groups and events at the university, according to the lawsuit, its administrators have done just the opposite for Jewish students. “SFSU has repeatedly denied Plaintiffs’ student groups, including Hillel and the Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi equal access to campus events that welcome other non-Jewish student organizations at the University… The anti-Jewish animus pervading SFSU’s campus is as ubiquitous as it is hostile. Jews are at best ignored, but more often ostracized in every corner of the university community. While other groups are able to host events, obtain permits and participate in “tabling” at student fairs, Jewish groups are customarily forced to fight for these basic rights as tuition-paying students, no matter how hard they work to follow processes correctly and avoid controversy.”
The lawsuit comes at a crucial time for Jewish students across the United States. According to the lawsuit, “Anti-Semitic incidents at colleges and universities have been rising at exponential rates, doubling from 2014 to 2015 and increasing from 90 to 108-another 20 percent-from 2015 to 2016…According to the FBI hate crimes statistics from 2015 (the most recent year calculated), anti-Jewish incidents accounted for 57 percent of all religiously motivated hate crimes.”
Furthermore, the suit was filed just four days after an announcement by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which is tasked with federal enforcement of Title VI on university campuses, stating that the office would be “scaling back” investigations into discrimination against “whole classes of victims.” It is abundantly clear that, unless courageous Jewish students like these plaintiffs bring lawsuits to enforce their own civil rights, they will have no other recourse than to suffer the discrimination in perpetuity.
“Anti-Semitism, like any other form of racism, is totally repugnant and cannot be countenanced. This lawsuit intends to address the rampant anti-Jewish animus pervasive at SFSU. Jews are entitled to the same civil rights as all Americans,” says Lawrence Hill, a senior partner at Winston & Strawn LLP and member of The Lawfare Project’s Board of Directors. “When our universities, which are supposed to be institutions of tolerance that encourage freedom of expression, instead foment prejudice and suppress free speech, we cannot stand idly by. College students are America’s future. Their minds shouldn’t be poisoned with hate and their voices shouldn’t be silenced by a mob.”
Amanda Berman, The Lawfare Project’s Director of Legal Affairs, who has been investigating SFSU for more than 14 months, added “Every couple of weeks, another anti-Semitic incident occurred; another Jewish student faced harassment or intimidation on campus; another member of Hillel or AEPi was targeted; another openly degrading comment surfaced from a member of the administration; or another student faced recalcitrance when trying to benefit, the same as all other students, from the opportunities and privileges of enrollment at SFSU. These defendants seem to believe that they are above the law, that discrimination against Jews is entirely acceptable, and that their response to criticism must go only so far as to placate Jewish donors. It is time for profound institutional change at SFSU, and since the faculty and administration is entirely unwilling to pursue such a goal, Jewish victims of this pervasively hostile environment have been left with no choice but to ask a federal court to compel it.”
A copy of the complaint can be found here.
H.R. 1987 versus President Trump
Primer: Try performing an internet search of any of the names below as an introduction to their own individual scandals. Two congressional committees are assigned to this bill, they are the House Rules Committee and the House Judiciary Sub-Committee on the Constitution and Civil Justice.
The Washington Post is ‘all-in’ on advancing this legislation and is likely aiding the committees with alleged facts, all yet to be proven true or accurate. This is tiresome and impedes the people’s business of that of representatives of the House…continuity of government and the transfer of power means nothing to these people. America suffers. Additionally, these democrats are using taxpayer dollars and legislative time to do this.
Further, there is already a lot of chatter inside the Beltway about the 25th Amendment. So, here it is for your use and reference.
25th Amendment
The 25th Amendment, proposed by Congress and ratified by the states in the aftermath of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, provides the procedures for replacing the president or vice president in the event of death, removal, resignation, or incapacitation. The Watergate scandal of the 1970s saw the application of these procedures, first when Gerald Ford replaced Spiro Agnew as vice president, then when he replaced Richard Nixon as president, and then when Nelson Rockefeller filled the resulting vacancy to become the vice president. Read more from the Congressional Research Service here….
Amendment XXV
Section 1.
In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
Section 2.
Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
Section 3.
Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
Section 4.
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
H.R. 1987 was introduced in April and the co-sponsor list of signatories is growing:
Mr. Raskin (for himself, Mr. Conyers, Mr. McGovern, Ms. Lee, Ms. Jayapal, Mr. Blumenauer, Mr. Doggett, Mr. Soto, Ms. Jackson Lee, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Gutiérrez, Ms. Judy Chu of California, Mr. Grijalva, Ms. Lofgren, Mr. Brown of Maryland, Mr. Cicilline, Mr. Takano, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, Mr. Evans, and Mr. Nadler) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on Rules, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned…
A BILLTo establish the Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,This Act may be cited as the “Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity Act”.
There is established a commission in the legislative branch to be known as the “Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity” (in this Act referred to as the “Commission”). The Commission shall serve as the body provided by law by Congress to carry out section 4 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
(a) In general.—If directed by Congress pursuant to section 5, the Commission shall carry out a medical examination of the President to determine whether the President is mentally or physically unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office, as described under subsection (b).
(b) Determination.—The determination under subsection (a) shall be made if the Commission finds that the President is temporarily or permanently impaired by physical illness or disability, mental illness, mental deficiency, or alcohol or drug use to the extent that the person lacks sufficient understanding or capacity to execute the powers and duties of the office of President.
(a) Number and appointment.—The Commission shall be composed of 11 members, appointed as follows:
(1) Two members appointed by the majority leader of the Senate.
(2) Two members appointed by the minority leader of the Senate.
(3) Two members appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
(4) Two members appointed by the minority leader of the House of Representatives.
(A) one of whom is appointed jointly by the two appointing individuals under paragraphs (1) through (4) who are members of, or caucus with, the Democratic party;
(B) one of whom is appointed jointly by the two appointing individuals under paragraphs (1) through (4) who are members of, or caucus with, the Republican party; and
(C) each of whom has served as President, Vice President, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, or Surgeon General.
(6) One member, to serve as Chair of the Commission, appointed by simple majority vote of the 10 members appointed under paragraphs (1) through (5).
(b) Criteria for appointment.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—Each member appointed to the Commission under paragraphs (1) through (4) of subsection (a) shall be a physician. Of the two members appointed by each individual under such paragraphs, one shall be a physician with a specialty in psychiatry. The Chair shall be either a physician or an individual appointed under paragraph (5) of subsection (a), or both.
(2) LIMITATIONS.—A member appointed under subsection (a) may not, at the time the member is appointed or serving as a member on the Commission, be—
(A) an elected official to any Federal, State, or local office;
(B) an employee (as that term is defined in section 2105 of title 5, United States Code, including any employee of the United States Postal Service or the Postal Regulatory Commission); or
(C) a member of the Armed Forces, including reserve components thereof.
(3) PHYSICIAN DEFINED.—In this subsection, the term “physician” means a doctor of medicine licensed to practice medicine, surgery, or osteopathy in a State.
(c) Travel expenses.—Each member shall receive travel expenses, including per diem in lieu of subsistence, in accordance with applicable provisions under subchapter I of chapter 57 of title 5, United States Code.
(1) IN GENERAL.—Each member shall be appointed for a term of 4 years. A member may serve after the expiration of that member’s term until a successor has taken office.
(2) APPOINTMENT.—Each member shall be appointed during the period beginning on the date that a Presidential election is held and ending on the date that is 30 days after such election date.
(3) VACANCIES.—A vacancy in the Commission shall be filled in the manner in which the original appointment was made, not later than 30 days after the vacancy occurs. Any member appointed to fill a vacancy occurring before the expiration of the term for which the member’s predecessor was appointed shall be appointed only for the remainder of that term.
SEC. 5. Examination of the President.
(a) In general.—A concurrent resolution described in this subsection is a concurrent resolution directing the Commission to conduct an examination of the President to determine whether the President is incapacitated, either mentally or physically, the title of which is “Directing the Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity to conduct an examination of the President”, and the text of which consists solely of a directive to the Commission to conduct the examination.
(b) Procedures.—The provisions of section 2908 (other than subsection (a)) of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act of 1990 shall apply to the consideration of a concurrent resolution described in subsection (a) in the same manner as such provisions apply to a joint resolution described in section 2908(a) of such Act.
(c) Special rules.—For purposes of applying subsection (b) with respect to such provisions, the following rules shall apply:
(1) Any reference to the Committee on Armed Services of the House of Representatives shall be deemed a reference to the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives and any reference to the Committee on Armed Services of the Senate shall be deemed a reference to the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate.
(2) Any reference in subsection (c) to a “20-day period” shall be deemed a reference to a “48-hour period”.
(3) Any reference in subsection (d) to “the third day” shall be deemed a reference to “the first day”.
(4) Any reference to the date on which the President transmits a report shall be deemed a reference to the date on which a Member of Congress introduced a concurrent resolution described in subsection (a).
(d) Examination.—Not later than 72 hours after the adoption by Congress of the concurrent resolution described in subsection (a), the Commission shall conduct the examination described under such subsection.
(a) In general.—Not later than 72 hours after completing the examination under section 4(d), and notwithstanding the HIPAA privacy regulations (as defined in section 1180(b)(3) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1320d–9(b)(3))), the Commission shall submit a report to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate describing the findings and conclusions of the examination.
(b) Consideration.—Any refusal by the President to undergo such examination shall be taken into consideration by the Commission in reaching a conclusion in the report under subsection (a).
1 Wiretap Order for 3.3 Million Calls, Probable Cause?
Wiretaps are nothing new and for law enforcement it is a top investigative tool to solving cases. All wiretaps must have a well define probable cause in order for the application to be approved. This particular case however is a head-scratcher where real answers are still not forthcoming.
***
With a single wiretap order, US authorities listened in on 3.3 million phone calls
The order was carried out in 2016 as part of a federal narcotics investigation.
NEW YORK, NY — US authorities intercepted and recorded millions of phone calls last year under a single wiretap order, authorized as part of a narcotics investigation.
The wiretap order authorized an unknown government agency to carry out real-time intercepts of 3.29 million cell phone conversations over a two-month period at some point during 2016, after the order was applied for in late 2015.
The order was signed to help authorities track 26 individuals suspected of involvement with illegal drug and narcotic-related activities in Pennsylvania.
The wiretap cost the authorities $335,000 to conduct and led to a dozen arrests.
But the authorities noted that the surveillance effort led to no incriminating intercepts, and none of the handful of those arrested have been brought to trial or convicted.
The revelation was buried in the US Courts’ annual wiretap report, published earlier this week but largely overlooked.
“The federal wiretap with the most intercepts occurred during a narcotics investigation in the Middle District of Pennsylvania and resulted in the interception of 3,292,385 cell phone conversations or messages over 60 days,” said the report.
Details of the case remain largely unknown, likely in part because the wiretap order and several motions that have been filed in relation to the case are thought to be under seal.
It’s understood to be one of the largest number of calls intercepted by a single wiretap in years, though it’s not known the exact number of Americans whose communications were caught up by the order.
We contacted the US Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, where the wiretap application was filed, but did not hear back.
Albert Gidari, a former privacy lawyer who now serves as director of privacy at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, criticized the investigation.
“They spent a fortune tracking 26 people and recording three million conversations and apparently got nothing,” said Gidari. “I’d love to see the probable cause affidavit for that one and wonder what the court thought on its 10 day reviews when zip came in.”
“I’m not surprised by the results because on average, a very very low percentage of conversations are incriminating, and a very very low percent results in conviction,” he added.
When reached, a spokesperson for the Justice Department did not comment.
Seventy-seven federal jurisdictions submitted reports of wiretap applications for 2016. For the third year in a row, the District of Arizona authorized the most federal wiretaps, approximately 9 percent of the applications approved by federal judges.
Federal judges and state judges reported the authorization of 600 wiretaps and 177 wiretaps, respectively, for which the AO received no corresponding data from prosecuting officials. Wiretap Tables A-1 and B-1 (which will become available online after July 1, 2017, at http://www.uscourts.gov/statistics-reports/analysis-reports/wiretap-reports) contain information from judge and prosecutor reports submitted for 2016. The entry “NP” (no prosecutor’s report) appears in these tables whenever a prosecutor’s report was not submitted. Some prosecutors may have delayed filing reports to avoid jeopardizing ongoing investigations. Some of the prosecutors’ reports require additional information to comply with reporting requirements or were received too late to include in this document. Information about these wiretaps should appear in future reports.
Revoking U.S. Citizenship, it Does Happen
FNC: A Mexico native serving time in a prison south of the border for rape had his naturalized U.S. citizenship revoked by a federal judge Tuesday after authorities discovered the man failed to disclose a previous child sex assault conviction dating back more than 20 years.
The decision to denaturalize Jose Arizmendi, 54, made him the 88th person in the last eight years to have his citizenship revoked, according to a review by SeattlePI.com. Arizmendi had been living in Texas, making him the ninth person from the Lone Star State in eight years to be denaturalized.
Jose Arizmendi, seen in a 1996 mug shot.
“The Justice Department is committed to preserving the integrity of our nation’s immigration system,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Chad A. Readler said in a statement. “We will aggressively pursue denaturalization in cases where individuals lie on their naturalization applications, especially in a circumstance like this one, which involved a child sex abuser. Civil denaturalization cases are an important law enforcement tool for protecting the public, including our children.”
Arizmendi, who is currently serving an 18-year sentence in Mexico for the rape of a minor there, did not tell officials at his immigration interview in October 1995 about his conviction six months earlier for the aggravated sexual assault of a child, according to a Department of Justice news release. Arizmendi was given 10 years of probation in that case, The Houston Chronicle reported.
When officials approving his immigration request asked if he had ever been arrested or convicted of a crime, Arizmendi told them: “No.”
Partly based on that answer, Arizmendi became a U.S. citizen in 1996. But immigration officials eventually uncovered the child sex assault conviction and alerted the DOJ, which initiated proceedings to strip Arizmendi of his citizenship in February 2015.
Because of a 10-year statute of limitations, U.S. authorities couldn’t revoke the citizenship based on the criminal conviction alone – but due to Arizmendi’s lie to immigration officials, they were able to strip it as a civil denaturalization.
“Applications for naturalization must be candid with all material facts,” Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas Abe Martinez said in a statement. “Like in this case, failing to disclose material data should result in denaturalization.”
*** Meanwhile, other cases such as that posted below are still common and daily criminal cases.
From left, rape-home invasion suspects Francisco Palencia, 17, and Josue Ramirez, 19. Ramirez has an immigration hold from ICE at the Gwinnett County Jail near Atlanta.
GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. – It’s easily one of the most horrific crimes of the year in the Atlanta area, and now WND has found that the lead suspect is an illegal alien from Latin America.
On June 15, police arrested three Hispanic teen agers accused of raping a 23-year-old Gwinnett County mother in front of her 4-year-old son.
The suspects are Josue Aguilar Ramirez, 19, Francisco Palencia, 17, and an unidentified 15-year-old girl. All three face charges of kidnapping, rape, cruelty to children, aggravated sodomy and aggravated battery.
The oldest, Ramirez, is an illegal immigrant who is subject to an immigration hold at the Gwinnett County Detention Center, according to online jail records.
According to the police report, the young mother arrived home from work with her two small children just before 3 a.m. on May 12 and found two armed men inside her kitchen, each wearing black jackets and ski masks. They were armed with Taser stun guns.
“The two males were armed with Tasers and approached ( her),” according to the police report.
The incident occurred at the woman’s apartment in unincorporated Tucker, Georgia, within Gwinnett County, a suburb of Atlanta that has one of the state’s highest populations of illegal immigrants.
The mother initially tried to fight back, but one of the men threw two pots of boiling water on her, severely burning her shoulder, neck and arm, according to the police report. Even though badly burned, she still struggled to get away from her attackers and back to her children.
That’s when the men shocked the woman with the Taser and forced her into the bedroom. One of the teens asked her if she had HIV, and she said “no.” They demanded she take off her clothes and forced her to perform oral sex before raping her, the police reports state.
She told police that she “complied wit h the male’s demands out of fear for what could be done to her children.”
