2 POLICE RELEASED FROM JAIL

The door to the U.S. Marshals Service office swung open Thursday, and the
suspended police officers stepped into outstretched arms.

Patrick Bowron walks with his fiancee, Alexandra Ugarte, and his mother,
Beatrice, as they leave the federal courthouse after Bowron's release. The
San Antonio police officer later answered questions from reports. Photo by
Delcia Lopez/Express-News Photographer

Eyes slick with tears, Conrad Fragozo Jr. embraced his weeping wife.
Patrick Bowron's mother clutched her son fiercely.

Free for the first time since they were arrested and accused more than two
months ago of organizing a scheme to protect cocaine smugglers, Fragozo and
Bowron are forbidden to speak to each other as a condition of their release
on bond.

They left the courthouse one at a time.

Fragozo declined to talk to reporters, but Bowron later met with the media
at his lawyer's office.

He started by attributing his release to prayer, and frequently injected
religious references into his answers. Later, he acknowledged that as a
police officer he had looked skeptically on jailhouse religious fervor.

He recalled arriving at the West Side substation March 22. He was about a
half-hour early for the A shift, which starts at 6:30 a.m.

Waiting for him were FBI agents along with SWAT officers. He said he cannot
recall what went through his mind when the handcuffs came out.

"It was just unbelievable," he said, "unbelievable to hear someone say, I'm
under arrest for such-and-such and then put you in handcuffs when you're
still in police uniform."

Bowron, 27, refused to answer questions of guilt or innocence during the
interview in the office of his lawyer, "Rusty" Ronald Guyer.

One of the youngest officers arrested, Bowron's boyish good looks were
countered by stubble and pallor Thursday.

On either side of him, his fiancee, Alexandra Ugarte, and his mother
occasionally offered a steadying or consoling hand.

Bowron said that, at first, he had nothing in his barren cell.

Authorities had taken from him the onyx crucifix he routinely carried in
his left breast pocket, a gift from his mother when he joined the force.

Outside, he was losing his material possessions, most notably a pickup
repossessed by creditors.

His link to the outside was a phone he could request by punching an
intercom. He did what so many others do in those circumstances.

"I cried," he said. "I cried a lot."

He fumed about the case.

He was one of a dozen people swept up by the FBI undercover operation,
which revolved around an agent posing as a drug trafficker. Most were
quickly released on bond; he and Fragozo, however, were denied bond.

And prosecutors labeled him a "ringleader."

"That was nonsense," he said.

"I couldn't believe this was happening to a person like me," he said. "I've
always felt I've always been a good person, a great guy, a great friend."

As Fragozo left the courthouse, he and his wife silently threaded through
the swarming cameras and microphones that followed their every step until
they reached a waiting sport utility vehicle.

Flanked by his fiancee and his parents, Bowron drove to see his grandmother
briefly and then to his attorney's office, where he sat for interviews. His
attorney hoped it would give the officer a more sympathetic image in the
public's eye.

After their March 22 arrests, U.S. Magistrate Judge John Primomo released
most of the accused, but detained Fragozo and Bowron.

He said they might flee because they face the stiffest penalties if
convicted: life behind bars.

The two appealed but remained in solitary cells until this week when U.S.
District Judge Edward C. Prado set a $100,000 bond for each. In addition,
he required certain of their friends and family to sign as sureties and to
post a $10,000 deposit.

"Given the conditions I set up, I don't think they're going anywhere,"
Prado said.

Fragozo, 36, was silent when he left the courthouse, ignoring questions
reporters flung at him.

"Right now, this is time for him to spend with his family," said his
attorney, Joel Perez.

During his interview Thursday, Bowron told reporters his anguish increased
when a friend and colleague, officer Hector Garza, was killed while
responding to a domestic disturbance call days after Bowron's arrest.

"We used to cover each other on calls," he said, tears filling his eyes.

Bowron said he shared similar relationships with at least three of the
officers accused alongside him: Manuel Cedillo Jr., Lawrence Bustos and
Peter Saenz.

It was the same bond he forged with all the officers who worked with him on
a job he loved.

Talking nostalgically about the small details of a patrol, such as logging
onto the squad car computer, he said he still loves the job he may never
have again.