ICE Agent's Prosecution May Mean International Crime Boss's Freedom

January 13th, 2008 at 07:42am Mike McGarry 214

                                         
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ICE Agent's Prosecution May Mean
International Crime Boss's Freedom
              By Mike McGarry   

The prosecution of Cory Voorhis, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who is charged in a high-profile case with three federal misdemeanors for allegedly illegally accessing a restricted database, could lead to the dismissal of charges or to drastically reduced charges for the alleged head of the notorious Mexico-based criminal Castorena Family Organization (CFO), some say.   

Voorhis was the lead ICE investigator in a five-year, multi-agency investigation that broke the back of CFO, the most extensive and sophisticated criminal counterfeit ID organization ever to  operate in the U.S.  To date, the alleged patriarch of CFO, Pedro Castorena-Ibarra, had been held by Mexican authorities while he has been fighting extradition to the U.S. to face charges from a federal grand jury indictment.

In a surprise development, Castorena-Ibarra appeared in federal court in Denver on Thursday, January 10, according to newspaper reports.
 

Michael Riebau, a former 33-year Department of Homeland Security criminal investigator and a spokesman for Cory Legal Defense, an organization formed to help raise funds for Voorhis’ legal costs, said the government’s prosecution of Voorhis will sabotage the case against Castorena-Ibarra. Riebau said that Voorhis would have been the government’s key witness against Castorena-Ibarra but because Voorhis is currently facing charges, his creditability as a witness has been severely compromised.
 

“The travesty in this case is profound,” Riebau said. “Cory did nothing unlawful, and that eventually will be shown in court. But for the U.S. government to go after Cory on trumped-up charges knowing that it is seriously jeopardizing its own case against an international crime lord is unconscionable. Without Cory, there is no case against (Pedro) Castorena,” he said.
 

Riebau said he thinks Castorena-Ibarra and his legal council may have become aware of the charges against Voorhis and they may have agreed to return to the U.S. now, knowing they might win a dismissal or a reduced plea offer from the government. Castorena-Ibarra’s pending charges include money laundering violations for which, if convicted, could get him 20 years in prison.                               
 

Voorhis and his attorneys are scheduled to appear in federal court in Denver on Monday, January 14, to argue for a motion to dismiss the charges against him based on selective prosecution.
        

Entry Filed under: Politics, Immigration, Colorado, Crime, Garfield County, The West, Eagle County, Denver, United Post