Associated Press
HOUSTON - A jury found three federal immigration officers guilty Monday of failing to render aid to an illegal immigrant whose neck was broken during a raid more than two years ago at a Bryan home.
Louis Rey Gomez, 37; Richard Henry Gonzales, 37; and Carlos Reyna, 43, all of San Antonio, were found guilty of willfully denying Serafin Olvera-Carrera medical care after his paralyzing injury.
The officers said they thought Olvera-Carrera, 47, was faking his injuries.
The federal court jury also found Gonzales guilty of a second charge of using excessive force by spraying Olvera-Carrera with pepper spray. Meanwhile, Reyna, accused of excessive force for beating the immigrant, was found innocent of that charge.
Relatives of Olvera-Carrera wept as the verdict was read. The jury spent more than five hours deliberating over two days.
Gonzales faces up to 20 years in prison and $500,000 in fines. Reyna and Gomez each face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal scheduled a sentencing hearing for Sept. 17.
Federal prosecutor Ruben Perez, asked that the three men, former Immigration and Naturalization Service officers who were free on bond, be taken into custody. Rosenthal ordered that Gonzales should be detained because of the nature of his offense and that Reyna and Gomez remain free, but be fitted with electronic monitoring devices.
Enrique Olvera, a 15-year-old son of Olvera-Carrera, said he got nervous when the first verdict read was not guilty for Reyna.
“I got a little scared,” he said, but added he was very satisfied with the jury’s verdict.
Afterward in the hallway, a Mexican Consulate official approached Perez and said “muchas gracias” and hugged the prosecutor.
“The jury spoke and found their conduct criminal and egregious,” Perez said of the immigration officers.
“We could not be more pleased with this verdict or more proud of the prosecutors and investigators in this case,” U.S. Attorney Michael Shelby said.
Reyna’s defense attorney, J.W. Johnson, said he was surprised by the verdict.
“We didn’t feel like my client had any involvement from beginning to end,” he said.
During the trial Perez said it wasn’t until more than seven hours after Olvera-Carrera was paralyzed that a nurse at a jail in Comal County got medical care for the man, who Perez said spent hours moaning and begging for help from the federal officers.
Perez said Reyna at one point joked about throwing Olvera-Carrera into the luggage compartment of a bus that was taking the 21 immigrants arrested at the Bryan home on March 25, 2001. Perez also said when Olvera-Carrera was moved to the bus, the officers dragged his paralyzed body across the ground.
Olvera-Carrera died in February 2002 after relatives requested he be taken off life support. He had been improving and communicating until he suffered heart and respiratory problems that left him brain dead.
The father of five, from San Luis Potosi in central Mexico, had been working as a roofer at the time of the raid. Federal officials said he had been in the United States since 1977.