Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, second from right, presiding over House panel

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., plans to reveal today Drug Enforcement Agency investigative reports that confirm a previous WND story presenting evidence the drug smuggler given immunity to testify against border agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean was involved in a second smuggling incident.

The DEA documents and Department of Homeland Security investigative reports already presented by WND contradict the prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, who repeatedly has insisted to the public that smuggler Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila was not a suspect under investigation in a second drug incident.

Sutton gave Aldrete-Davila immunity to testify as the prosecution's chief witness regarding the Feb. 17, 2005, shooting incident on the Texas border that led to prison sentences for Ramos and Compean of 11 and 12 years respectively.

In a statement released by his office, Rohrabacher said, "Upon review of these new documents, it is obvious that U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton knowingly presented a false picture of the drug smuggler in order to justify his ruthless prosecution of Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean."

Rohrabacher plans to hold a press conference today at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time in the House TV Gallery, H-321, in Washington.

A spokeswoman with Rohrabacher's Washington office confirmed to WND the congressman now has evidence Sutton's office was notified by the DEA of Aldrete-Davila's direct involvement in a second offense.

"Sutton chose to disregard the information, despite the evidence produced by the DEA," Rohrabacher told WND. "Sutton's continuous attempts to paint a benign picture of the drug smuggler is not only disingenuous but amounts to misleading the jury and the public when questioned about the second offense."

Rohrabacher's spokeswoman, Tara Setmayer, told WND the congressman considers the recently obtained DEA reports sufficient basis to demand a new trial.

WND has confirmed with Sutton's office the information contained in the DEA reports matches the information from a Nov. 21, 2005, memo by DHS Special Agent Christopher Sanchez, which was highlighted in a WND story.

According to both reports, Aldrete-Davila brought a second load of 752 pounds of marijuana across the border in bales packed in a 1990 Chevy Astro van he drove Oct. 22, 2005.

The smuggler brought the drug load to the home of Cipriano Ortiz-Hernandez at 12101 Quetzal in Clint, Texas. Ortiz-Hernandez positively identified Aldrete-Davila to DEA investigating agents from police photographs.

WND has obtained both the Texas ID number and the Social Security number of Ortiz-Hernandez.

Texas law enforcement officers confirm both numbers are recorded for Ortiz-Hernandez in current state law enforcement databases. The officers told WND Ortiz-Hernandez has a criminal record in addition to the Oct. 22, 2005, drug investigation.

Rohrabacher spokeswoman Setmayer told WND Sutton's attempt to seal the information about Aldrete-Davila's October 2005 drug offense was an intentional effort to withhold from the jury information the prosecutor knew would discredit the smuggler as a witness, thereby destroying the prosecution's case.

"Sutton chose to hide the second drug offense so he could convict Ramos and Compean, rather than do his duty as an officer of the court in allowing the truth to come out," Setmayer said.

WASHINGTON – Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, the Mexican drug smuggler given immunity to return to the United States and testify against two Border Patrol agents, was involved in smuggling a second load of marijuana into the United States after he was given court protection, records have confirmed.

Newly released transcripts of the trial for Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos have corroborated WND reports that the Mexican illegal alien was involved in the second drug case, this one involving a load of marijuana brought into the U.S. in October 2005.

That followed his grant of immunity by U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton in return for his truthful testimony against Compean and Ramos, who now are serving 11 and 12 year prison terms following their convictions that they shot Aldrete-Davila as he was fleeing back into Mexico.

A number of activist organizations have been so outraged by the agents' predicament for doing what many people believe was no more than their reasonable duties there have been repeated calls to President Bush to issue pardons to the former agents.

*snip*

The transcript shows that during the trial conference with the prosecution and defense lawyers, the judge talked about Aldrete-Davila's second offense in an equally matter-of-fact way.

The transcript shows Cardone commenting as follows:

"In other words, all the investigation they've (government) done to investigate this case leads up to him (Aldrete-Davila) coming into the country, and then in October committing this second involvement. Okay? But there's no lying, if that's what we're characterizing it as, until the October incident."

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., told WND that the trial transcript now makes clear that "the prime witness against these two Border Patrol agents was involved in another major load of drugs and the prosecution made a conscious decision to keep these facts from the jury."

At the trial, Cardone ruled that Aldrete-Davila was not on trial. She ruled that no reference about the October 2005 drug offense was to be made to the jury and she sealed all records concerning that offense, despite vigorous defense objections that this information not only violated Aldrete-Davila’s immunity grant, but also went to the heart of the defense argument that Aldrete-Davila's testimony was not credible.

Rohrabacher expressed continued outrage that Sutton had decided to grant immunity to an admitted drug dealer so he could prosecute two Border Patrol agents who were trying to apprehend him.

"Once Aldrete-Davila was caught a second time," Rohrabacher told WND, "it unmasks the indefensible nature of the prosecutor's decision to go after the Border Patrol agents. If the jury is not allowed to know about Aldrete-Davila's second offense, then Ramos and Compean did not get a fair trial."

The revelation also "raises questions whether what we're talking about here is two honest Border Patrol agents who stumbled across a drug cartel operation and are being punished for coming up against the power of the cartel," Rohrabacher said. "The second drug incident makes clear that Aldrete-Davila's profession is drug smuggling."

Rohrabacher was harshly critical of both Sutton and President Bush.

"What Ramos and Compean got was a screw job from day one by the U.S. attorney's office in order to send a message to all Border Patrol agents," Rohrabacher told WND. “The message from Sutton was that the President of the United States makes policy on the border, so don't get in the way. If you haven't gotten the message yet, this is an open border."

He said Sutton was running a "public relations campaign," and charged that Sutton's purpose has been to "poison the well of public opinion, calling Ramos and Compean corrupt, when there never were any corruption charges, then suggesting they shot an unarmed man in the back, when we only have (the) drug dealer's word he was unarmed and the medical evidence is that he was not shot in the back."

"In the Ramos-Compean case we have lie after lie after lie coming out of Sutton's office. And now we've got a public relations campaign to protect Sutton because he is a protégé of the president and the president doesn't want to see his career destroyed," the congressman told WND.

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, was equally critical of the prosecution.

"It would now appear that Aldrete-Davila was not some innocent, poor migrant mule bringing narcotics into the United States so he could buy medicine for his sick mother," he said.

"From a reading of the trial transcript, it would now appear that there is at least one more case of bringing drugs into the United States illegally involving Aldrete-Davila," he said.

Poe also felt this information should have reached the jury. "If the jury would have heard about this second instance, it certainly would have affected the drug smuggler's credibility. The drug smuggler was the prosecution's case. This star witness, Aldrete-Davila, had a lot of baggage, no pun intended."

WND has previously reported that the prosecution provided Aldrete-Davila with a multiple-use border pass signed by Homeland Security Special Agent Christopher Sanchez, along with his badge number.

WND also had specifically asked Sutton a broadly framed question, whether "there was any second incident of any kind involving Aldrete-Davila." He responded by denying that the prosecution's star witness was involved in any second drug incident, but the trial transcript now available appears to directly contradict Sutton’s denial.