Freedom Scribe Blogging on issues of Constitutional freedom.

Please note that my copyright notice is null and void for this post.  Anyone who wishes to borrow the text of this letter to use on behalf of Cele Castillo is welcome – and even urged – to do so.

The whole story, in Cele’s own words.

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The Honorable Eric Holder

United States Attorney General

U.S. Department of Justice

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, D.C. 20530-0001

Re: Prosecutorial Misconduct

USA vs. Celerino Castillo, III

SA: 08-CR-00193 (1) – WRF

No. 08- 51144 USA vs. CASTILLO

Dear Attorney General Holder:

I have recently read in the news media about your unprecedented reversal of conviction in the corruption case concerning Senator Ted Stevens, and I applaud your action.  It was very apparent that there was prosecutorial misconduct that did indeed take place in that case.

However, I have recently become cognizant of a similar – and quite possibly even a far worse – example of prosecutorial misconduct, and as an American citizen, I am urgently requesting your assistance in getting to the bottom of this ugly situation.

Mr. Celerino “Cele” Castillo, III, a resident of my own state of Texas, is best remembered for being a whistleblower during the Iran-Contra investigation.  Mr. Castillo submitted his testimony to the House Select Committee for Intelligence and went before a federal grand jury in Washington D.C, to testify to CIA involvement in murder, torture, drug trafficking, and arms smuggling.

After his retirement from the DEA, Mr. Castillo became an educator and an activist for several civil rights organizations, such as People for Peace and Justice, Veterans for Peace, and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

On March 06, 2008, Mr. Castillo was arrested by ATF agents in San Antonio, Texas.  The charges were filed by U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton for the Western District of Texas.  After eight months, Mr. Castillo’s charges were dismissed under Poke v. U.S.

However, prior to Mr. Castillo’s charges being dismissed, he was told that he was required to plead guilty to new charges of “Selling Guns without a License and Aiding and Abetting.”  ATF agents telephoned Mr. Castillo’s elderly mother on literally a daily basis, threatening this elderly lady with never seeing her son again, until Mr. Castillo pled guilty and was sentenced to 37 months of incarceration.  Such tactics on the parts of the ATF agents in question were at best, disgusting – and at worst, even criminal.  That is, said tactics certainly appear to be felony extortion in my personal view, and I cannot see any other interpretation at this time.

Mr. Castillo was initially ordered to surrender for his term of incarceration on March 05, 2009, but he discovered soon after his sentencing that his attorney, Robert “Eddie” de la Garza, had been under investigation by the state bar throughout his case – and Mr. de la Garza had failed to advise the court that he was in the process of being suspended.  There was a massive issue of conflict of interest on the part of Mr. de la Garza also, because the same agents involved in Mr. Castillo’s case were also involved with another case involving Mr. de la Garza’s son, Andrew de la Garza, who had been arrested by ATF a short time prior on quite similar charges to Mr. Castillo’s.

The judge in Mr. Castillo’s case has extended Mr. Castillo’s required surrender date until July 20, 2009, so that he may have ample time to prepare this case with his new public defender.

On April 10, 2009, Mr. Castillo and his new public defender filed nine counts of Prosecutorial Misconduct and Outrageous Government Conduct related to his case.  The complaints were filed with the Office of the Inspector General and the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, and therefore should be readily available for your review.

I do strongly believe that the prosecutorial misconduct involved in Mr. Castillo’s case was even more severe than that which was involved in Senator Ted Stevens’ case, as I do very strongly suspect that Mr. de la Garza’s son’s predicament was actually used by the ATF agents involved in both cases to blackmail Mr. de la Garza, Mr. Castillo’s defense attorney, into giving Mr. Castillo the worst possible legal advice – in other words, pressuring Mr. Castillo’s attorney to advise him in the strongest terms to plead guilty even though it was never in Mr. Castillo’s best interest to do so.  Put still another way, this situation certainly does make it appear that this was felony extortion again, which I am sure you will agree is never acceptable conduct for anyone, let alone someone in the legal or law enforcement professions.

In light of these facts, I am respectfully requesting an immediate, thorough and very urgent inquiry into the manner in which Mr. Castillo’s case was prosecuted, and I also feel that time is of extremely crucial importance in this matter.  Cele Castillo is one of the last surviving credible witnesses to the government agency abuses that took place during the Iran Contra years, and as a former deep cover DEA agent, the very unfortunate reality is that he will be placed in extremely grave personal danger from the moment he enters the U.S. prison system on July 20th, 2009.

I hope to hear from you concerning this matter at your very earliest convenience.

Respectfully yours,

Kathryn A. Graham

Hooks, Texas

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Posted under Civil Rights, Freedom, Injustice, Politics, Uncategorized

What happens when a law enforcement officer – especially a good one – goes to prison?

According to one anonymous prison nurse in Texas, the guards may not like everything that happens, but for the sake of peace, they will all look the other way.  There is an unwritten rule in all prisons that any cop is fair game.

How about a top DEA agent who put a lot of drug lords away and who subsequently has to spend some time at Club Fed?  Especially one who is not so young anymore and is in physically poor health?  How long will he live?  Five minutes?  Maybe ten minutes, if he’s very, very lucky?

Make no mistake – whatever they may call Cele Castillo’s sentence for buying and selling guns without a license at a Texas gun show (which, folks, happens to be completely legal), any prison sentence at all for this man is a sentence of death just as surely as if the judge had sentenced Castillo to the needle.

So what is Castillo’s real crime?  He has the goods – documentary evidence – to put the sitting president’s father away for a long, long time for his illegal smuggling activities during Iran Contra.  Unfortunately, Castillo also has a sense of honor – he just won’t keep his mouth shut.

Wow, some hardened criminal, huh?  Our streets surely will be safer when this guy is gone.

Worse, his aging mother is afraid he will go away for long enough that she won’t see him again before she passes on.  Clearly, she does not even understand that if Castillo even enters Club Fed, he is highly unlikely to be coming out at all.  It might be worthwhile to pull that sweet lady’s phone records.  Has she been getting pushy and scary phone calls lately?  She’d never tell her son, of course, but I surely wouldn’t bet against it.

Once Castillo chose to plead this case out, he was discredited in the eyes of the public.  Joe Q. Six-Pack and Jane Q. Soccer-Mom are so damned scared of firearms they won’t even bother to check the law.  The information Castillo has no longer has any value at all, unfortunately, but any of us with mothers are forced to understand why he has done this.

Who is Cele Castillo?  His full name is Celerino Castillo III, and he is an American hero and the descendant of other heroes from other wars.  Cele fought in Viet Nam.  He was on the front lines during the Drug War of the 1980s.  And as his web site says, his third and final war is proving to be the most dangerous – his war against his own government.

During the 1980s, Castillo was involved in DEA operations in Central and South America.  During this time, he became especially interested in the activities at Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador.  Drugs were moving one way, to the United States, and money and guns were moving the other way, to the Nicaraguan Contras, all under the direct supervision of Lt. Col. Oliver North.  When Castillo tried to press his investigation, he was ordered to back off, as this was a black operation emanating from the White House.

Castillo became interested in Poppy Bush, then Reagan’s Vice President, after meeting him at a function in Guatemala and trying to tell him what he had seen – and Bush just walked away from him, looking for another hand to shake.  Castillo may have been barred from pressing the case further, but he could observe happenings at the airport, and he kept a daily journal of those years.  Do you understand the significance of this?  Who is the one man, probably the man who was ultimately most responsible for Iran Contra, who was never prosecuted?  I’ll give you a huge hint.  On the night of Barry Seal’s murder near New Orleans, whose top secret phone number was found in Seals’ wallet?

None other than that of George H. W. Bush.  And there is only one way Seals could have acquired that number – and that is if Bush himself gave it to him.

Barry Seals was the most prolific and the most successful drug smuggler in all of history.  And he was about to testify about Iran Contra when he met his death.

Cele Castillo is certainly talented when it comes to choosing his enemies, but maybe that’s why I admire him so much.

It’s too late to try to get Cele Castillo off completely.  For his mother’s sake, he has already been forced to admit his utterly non-existent guilt, and a judge will pass sentence on him this very afternoon.  If Castillo is to survive this experience, however, we must make his plight so public that he will become toxic to touch.

Please spread this article far and wide.  Visit his web site at Powderburns. Let your friends and lawmakers know that if harm comes to Cele Castillo, you will know beyond the slightest doubt who is responsible.

I am waiting to learn Castillo’s sentence as I write this.  Maybe this judge will be smart enough to give him only probation.  Somehow, though, I doubt it.  Compassion in a police state?  Who are we kidding?

Posted under Uncategorized