By Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff and Jonathan Allen
WASHINGTON, Sept 3 (Reuters) - An immigration officer was back in custody in Texas on Thursday night after he was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of making false statements about the shooting of a Venezuelan man in Minnesota during a deportation surge there last winter, officials said.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Christian Castro was indicted on six counts of lying to investigators, according to a person familiar with the matter, speaking
on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the case.
The Minneapolis-based prosecutor who brought state charges against Castro, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, confirmed he had been arrested in Texas after being released from jail a week earlier.
"We expect he will appear in federal court in Texas, and a date will be set for him to appear in federal court in Minnesota," Moriarty said.
The indictment marks an extraordinary step by a Justice Department that has generally refrained from prosecuting federal law enforcement officers. It was the first known criminal case the Justice Department has pursued against a U.S. immigration agent over alleged wrongdoing in the Minneapolis ICE operation, part of President Donald Trump's wider immigration crackdown.
Castro faces state assault charges in Minnesota for shooting and wounding Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg on January 14, at the height of Trump's deportation campaign in Minnesota, which drew weeks of protest.
A Minnesota state arrest warrant remained in effect for Castro, who spent 90 days in a Texas county jail before he was released. Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, said he was refusing to sign extradition papers sent by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat, and a federal judge in Texas denied a request from Minnesota to compel Castro's extradition.
The state charges also include falsely reporting a crime after Castro allegedly wrongly told superiors at the Department of Homeland Security that Sosa-Celis and others attacked him with a snow shovel and broom, which was disproved by video evidence.
DHS has suspended Castro, and the person familiar with the case said a civil rights investigation is ongoing and no decision has been reached yet in that matter.
Matt Evans, a federal prosecutor who had been working on the case, was fired this week after ProPublica reported he sent an email to Sosa-Celis’ lawyers saying DOJ attorneys had stopped his efforts to bring federal charges, according to the person familiar with the case. Evans is now being investigated for obstruction of a grand jury investigation, the person said.
Castro has not publicly addressed the state charges against him since his release from the Cameron County jail last week, and he could not immediately be reached for comment on Thursday.
The Trump administration has largely defended the conduct of ICE agents, saying incorrectly that they have absolute immunity from state prosecutions.
Robin Wolpert, a lawyer for Sosa-Celis, said in a statement her client wants Castro to be held "fully accountable" with stronger civil rights charges. "Mr. Castro has been indicted for making false statements," she said. "But he made them to cover up the fact that he shot my client through the door of an occupied house without a self-defense justification."
The ACLU of Minnesota announced on Thursday that it will represent Sosa-Celis as he sues the Trump administration.
(Reporting by Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff in Washington, D.C. and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Michael Learmonth, Cynthia Osterman and Edwina Gibbs)
