XPost: stl.general, ok.general, nj.general   
   XPost: va.general   
   From: not@me.com   
      
   Eighteen months after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was   
   murdered in Arizona by Mexican bandits using guns purchased   
   through a U.S. government program called Fast and Furious, we   
   still don’t know who within the Department of Justice knew about   
   the program, much less who authorized it.   
      
   Certainly there has been no serious talk about prosecuting any   
   of the people responsible for assisting in the illegal sales of   
   over 2,000 guns to Mexican arms traffickers – guns that were   
   subsequently involved in the murders of BPA Terry and   
   Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata, as well   
   as possibly hundreds of Mexican citizens.   
      
   But while that investigation has dragged on, with Attorney   
   General Eric Holder denying knowledge of the program, denying   
   knowledge of who was involved and denying congressional   
   investigators access to tens of thousands of documents that   
   might answer those questions, New Mexico gun dealer Rick Reese   
   and his two sons Ryin and Remington have sat rotting in separate   
   detention centers, jails and prisons around the state accused of   
   a similar crime involving some 30 guns.   
      
   The Reese family, including Rick’s wife Terri, ran a gun shop in   
   Deming, N.M., and was arrested in late August of 2011 on charges   
   of knowingly selling guns to Mexican smugglers and various other   
   related charges.   
      
   After spending 6 months in jail, Terri Reese was finally granted   
   bail in March of this year, but Rick and the boys have been   
   repeatedly denied bail on the pretext that they are flight risks   
   or might try to engage in a Ruby Ridge-type standoff.   
      
   The rationale for denying the Reeses’ constitutional rights is   
   that Rick knows some people in Mexico, his home has a well and   
   solar power and there were guns and ammunition in their homes   
   and businesses when they were arrested. That’s right: Guns and   
   ammo in the home and business of a federally licensed firearms   
   dealer (all of which were seized a year ago and have never been   
   returned) is being offered as evidence that they can’t be   
   trusted – and a judge bought it.   
      
   Well, there’s also the fact that Rick and Terri were involved   
   with a local tea-party group. That’s probably reason enough   
   right there.   
      
   The Reeses are scheduled to finally get their day in court in   
   late July, almost a full year after they were arrested and   
   incarcerated. The first of several pre-trial motion hearings was   
   held last week in which the judge heard arguments as to whether   
   the charge of criminal conspiracy should be dropped. The   
   prosecution contends that the Reese family members were all in   
   cahoots in a conspiracy to sell guns to illegal buyers, falsify   
   purchase paperwork, smuggle guns to Mexico and launder the   
   illegal proceeds. The defense contends that the family operated   
   a business buying and selling firearms, ammunition and   
   accessories, and that they made every effort to ensure that   
   every sale they made was legal and properly documented.   
      
   During this first hearing, we learned several things about the   
   prosecution’s case. For instance, we learned that prosecutors   
   acknowledge that every gun the Reeses sold was properly logged   
   into and out of their store inventory, and that FBI background   
   checks were conducted, and approvals received, for each   
   purchaser. They also agree that all taxes were paid and no money   
   was exchanged “under the table,” nor did any of the family   
   members receive compensation above their normal company paycheck.   
      
   We learned that Rick Reese also employed retired and off-duty   
   law enforcement officers as part-time help in the shop, and that   
   a substantial portion of the company’s business came from law   
   enforcement officers and agencies.   
      
   We learned that prosecutors consider three family members   
   standing close to each other and quietly talking to be evidence   
   of conspiracy and that the lead investigator in the case has a   
   very low opinion of fellow law enforcement officers. When asked   
   if he considered the fact that the Reeses employed LEOs in the   
   shop to be contraindicative of a criminal conspiracy, he replied   
   that he did not because “a lot of them [cops and former cops]   
   are dirty.”   
      
   Probably the most important fact we learned at this hearing was   
   that the entire investigation was instigated based on a tip that   
   a woman named Penny Torres was making suspicious purchases of   
   guns and ammunition, and might be illegally buying for someone   
   else. That tip led to Torres’ arrest and her subsequent grand   
   jury testimony against the Reese family and another gun shop   
   where she had made some purchases. The presumption is that her   
   cooperation garnered her leniency in the charges and sentence   
   she was facing for her criminal activity.   
      
   What is most significant about the arrest of Penny Torres is   
   that the original tip identifying her as a potential “straw   
   buyer” came from Terri Reese.   
      
   Torres had claimed that her purchases were in preparation for a   
   large family reunion at an area ranch where her relatives wanted   
   to do a lot of shooting. At some point after the sales, Terri   
   Reese became suspicious of Torres’ story and contacted a friend   
   in the Luna County Sheriff’s office, who acted as the shop’s go-   
   to guy in law enforcement. He assured Terri that he would make a   
   report to ATF and get back to her.   
      
   Torres testimony against the Reese family led to a months-long   
   sting operation conducted against the Reeses by a federal agency   
   called Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI. That   
   investigation involved a confidential informant named Roman, who   
   was trying to earn a reduced sentence for drug and human   
   smuggling. His job was to make purchases of firearms and   
   ammunition from the Reeses while dropping hints that his intent   
   was to illegally take the guns to Mexico. The trick was to drop   
   those hints in such a way that they wouldn’t alarm the Reeses,   
   but that someone listening to a recording of the tape and   
   reading a transcript would conclude that the Reeses knew, or   
   should have known, his intentions.   
      
   Roman, by the way, speaks only broken English, and his   
   conversations with the Reeses included a lot of Spanish, a   
   language that no one in the Reese family speaks, but which has   
   been transcribed for the court in English.   
      
   Who would believe that a gun dealer’s report of a suspicious   
   purchaser would lead to a federal investigation of the dealer   
   herself, culminating in a raid with armored vehicles,   
   helicopters and heavily armed officers and agents from multiple   
   jurisdictions?   
      
   Or that a few firearms and ammunition sales in a high-volume gun   
   store, including the sales that Terri Reese had reported as   
   suspicious, would result in confiscation of virtually everything   
   the family had accumulated over a 25-year marriage and 17 years   
   in business – bank accounts, gun and coin collections, store   
   inventory, vehicles, real estate, just about everything the   
   family had?   
      
   Or that the same Justice Department that had instructed dealers   
   to sell over 2,000 guns to known straw buyers for Mexican drug   
   cartels while making no attempt to track or interdict them –   
   with a few arrests and minor charges against the straw   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)