A Venezuelan man shot by an ICE agent in January never attacked the agent as the Department of Homeland Security claimed, according to an explosive new court filing from the Department of Justice.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem originally claimed that Julio Sosa-Celis was shot during a Jan. 14 incident in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after he and another defendant, Alfredo Aljorna, “ambushed and attacked” the unnamed agent with snow shovels and broom handles.
“What we saw last night in Minnesota was an attempted murder of federal law enforcement,” Noem, dubbed “ICE Barbie” for her fondness of dressing up like an ICE agent, said in a Jan. 15 statement. “Fearing for his life, the officer filed a defensive shot.”
In a one-page motion seeking to have the charges dismissed, however, U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen wrote that “newly discovered evidence in this matter is materially inconsistent with the allegations” made by federal officials in both the charging document and their courtroom testimony.
The motion didn’t specify what new evidence had come to light. It asked that the felony assault charges filed against both men be dismissed with prejudice, meaning they can’t be resubmitted.
A lawyer for the two men told The New York Times in a statement that his clients were “overjoyed” by the request.
“They are so happy justice is being served by the government’s request to dismiss all charges with prejudice,” Brian D. Clark said. “The identity of the ICE agent should be made public and he should be charged for his crime.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to DHS and Pam Bondi’s DOJ for comment.
According to the Times, it’s still not clear what exactly happened during the Jan. 14 shooting, which came just a week after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed U.S. citizen Renee Nicole Good.
The shootings sparked widespread protests in Minneapolis that only intensified after a Border Patrol agent shot and killed Minnesotan Alex Pretti on Jan. 24.
Almost as soon as Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were arrested, inconsistencies emerged in the government’s story, the Times reported.
Originally officials said that ICE agents driving an unmarked vehicle attempted to conduct a traffic stop on a vehicle driven by Aljorna, who crashed his car and ran toward an apartment complex.
In their telling, an immigration agent chased him down and tried to arrest him, but Aljorna began to violently resist, and two other men ran out of the apartment building and attacked the agent. Afterward, the attackers escaped into the apartment building before later being arrested, officials said.
The next day, though, government officials said Sosa-Celis was the driver, not Aljorna, and only two defendants were charged despite the agent’s claims that he’d been assaulted by three people.
In court, representatives for Aljorna and Sosa-Celis denied assaulting the agent. Their lawyers acknowledged they’d been holding a broom and shovel when the agent approached them, but they said they ran into the apartment and he fired at them, hitting Sosa-Celis in the leg.
Neither video evidence nor testimony from three witnesses supported the agent’s version of events.
It was just the latest instance of the Department of Homeland Security providing false accounts of agent shootings.
Administration officials called Good and Pretti “domestic terrorists” and accused them of trying to kill federal agents, despite video evidence to the contrary.
Prosecutors also dropped charges against a woman shot by a Border Patrol agent in Chicago, Marimar Martinez, who was similarly accused of assault and falsely branded a “domestic terrorist.”
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