U.S. AGENTS MAY FACE CHARGES IN KILLING

Immigration Informant Helped Kill Drug Trafficker, Officials Say

WASHINGTON - Three U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are
expected to face criminal charges in the death of a suspected drug
trafficker killed with the help of an agency informant, according to
officials close to the investigation.

The veteran agents, who dealt directly with the informant, will probably be
charged with criminal negligence and, if convicted, could face prison time,
the U.S. officials said.

ICE's own investigation shows that the agency's informant, known as Lalo,
assigned corrupt Mexican police officers their roles in several killings,
called in gravediggers to bury bodies, and paid off killers. The activities
are detailed in ICE documents obtained by The Dallas Morning News.

Agents' role

At issue, the officials said, is whether the agents had advance knowledge
of the killings and did nothing to stop them.

The agents could not be reached for comment. ICE officials in El Paso and
the U.S. attorney's regional office in San Antonio declined to comment.

"Your questions touch on an ongoing investigation," agency spokeswoman
Leticia Zamarripa said. "And it's ICE's long-standing policy not to comment
on pending criminal cases."

Another U.S. law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity,
said the three agents did not act independently, but were following
supervisors' orders.

"These agents are small people in the whole game, but their names were in
the documents," said the official. "They didn't make decisions or control
this informant. They were regular people who took assignments, who took
orders from higher-ups."

Officials close to the case said they did not know whether any of the three
agents' superiors would face sanctions.

Killing described

The killing in question was of Durango lawyer and suspected drug trafficker
Fernando Reyes Aguado. In the documents obtained by The News, Lalo
described in detail how he helped kill the man, along with Mexican police
"officers who ... strangled Fernando then struck him in the back of the
head with a shovel, which was later used to bury him in the back yard of
the house where he was killed."

An audio recording of the slaying was made by unidentified ICE agents, some
of whom apparently were on the phone with Lalo at the time, a U.S. official
has said.

Lalo participated in at least five killings and over a six-month period was
aware of at least seven more - all involving victims of the Juarez drug
cartel, according to ICE documents and an affidavit the informant provided
to Mexican authorities in Dallas.

The same documents show that ICE recorded at least four conversations
between the informant and cartel members in which criminal activity was
discussed, including the planning of murders.

In January, Lalo led U.S. and Mexican authorities to a grave behind a house
in Juarez where the bodies of 12 men were unearthed.

At issue, said officials with knowledge of the case, was what information
the ICE agents had before the killings occurred, whether that information
could have prevented other slayings, and why the undercover operation
continued after the death of Mr. Reyes.

"Why not end the operation there, arrest the informant and arrest the
cartel leaders?" asked one U.S. law enforcement official, speaking on
condition of anonymity. "Many deaths could have been prevented."

Since Lalo's activities came to light, ICE special agent-in-charge Giovanni
Gaudioso and associate special agent-in-charge Patricia Kramer have been
transferred from El Paso to Washington.

Also aware of Lalo's activities, the ICE investigation shows, was U.S.
prosecutor Juanita Fielden, who is overseeing the government's case against
cartel leader Heriberto Santillan Tabares, scheduled to be tried in January
on drug and murder charges.

Ms. Fielden was kept abreast of the continuing operation, consistent with
the attorney general's guidelines regarding proper procedures for using
confidential informants, U.S. law enforcement officials said.

She oversaw payments to the informant totaling six figures, said U.S.
officials familiar with the case. They added that she would have had to
approve investigative tools used to build a case against the cartel as well
as in a $35 million cigarette-smuggling case that also featured Lalo in a
key role.

Ms. Fielden did not respond to messages left at her El Paso office.

The FBI currently is investigating the relationship between Lalo and ICE,
as well as the slaying of El Paso resident Abraham Guzman. El Paso police
said Mr. Guzman was slain Aug. 25 by an unidentified assailant who
apparently intended to kill Lalo.

FBI officials did not return calls placed to their office in El Paso.

Lawsuit planned

Meanwhile, El Paso victims' rights advocate Patricia Garibay said she is
working with Dallas lawyer Raul Loya to prepare a civil lawsuit against the
federal government on behalf of three families, including that of Ignacio
Padilla, an American citizen from Socorro, Texas.

Mr. Padilla's body was one of the 12 discovered at the gravesite in Juarez.
It remains unclear how he was killed. Ms. Garibay maintains that his
slaying could have been prevented if ICE had alerted law enforcement
authorities immediately after it became aware of the first killing
involving Lalo, which occurred in August 2003.

"Yes, many of these people were alleged drug traffickers," Ms. Garibay
said. "But they were still human beings who had loved ones waiting at home
for them. They weren't street dogs that you just discard like garbage."