May 18, 2007
After the FBI raid inside the County Courthouse earlier this week, in which agents executed search warrants on the offices of County Judge Anthony Cobos and Commissioners Miguel Teran and Luis Sarinana, Cobos said publicly that he hoped the search was not politically motivated. Sarinana also made statements to the same effect.
To say that local political differences have motivated a massive federal agency to raid county offices is a serious charge. And, according to FBI Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge Tim Kinard, the search warrants executed on Tuesday are in no way politically motivated.
The process to obtain a federal search warrant is not a simple one. While individual agents have wide latitude to look further into any tips they receive, and must go through their supervisor to open a case, a request for a search warrant still has to pass through several steps.
An agent must take his suspicions to a supervisor in a written affidavit. The supervisor has to find there is reasonable suspicion of criminal activity for a case to be opened. The supervisor takes the case to the Chief Division Counsel for the FBI in El Paso.
After the case has been reviewed, it then moves to the United States Attorney’s Office where it is further inspected by an Assistant U.S. Attorney to find probable cause to justify a warrant.
Once the AUSA agrees there is probable cause, the case is presented to a United States District Judge, who then decides whether there is enough merit to the case to proceed and issue a search warrant.
Attorney Miguel Torres agrees that the process to obtain a search warrant is a lengthy one designed to protect the rights of those subject to the search. “The Fourth Amendment says you have to show probable cause and a specific time and place,” he said. “It’s not a fishing expedition to see what (an agent) can find.”
Torres noted, however, that there is a difference between obtaining a search warrant and proving guilt in court. “The burden of proof that the government has to show for a warrant is nowhere near the burden of proof in a criminal trial,” he said, where the government must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
County Commissioner Veronica Escobar, on the day of the raid, said she believed there was no political motive to the searches. “I don’t know how they can allege that the FBI can be controlled by local political players,” she said. “It seems a little far-fetched.”
Kinard said the searches are part of a larger, ongoing investigation that has been going on for quite sometime. “Because of that, it’s hard to imagine they are politically motivated,” he said.
Kinard stated the searches were centered on investigations of former employees of NCED, or the National Center for Employment of the Disabled. NCED offices, along with offices and homes of Access Health Source CEO Frank Apodaca and attorney and former County Judge Luther Jones, were searched last year by the FBI.
A spokesman for County Judge Cobos said Cobos was not commenting on the matter.
Rene can be contacted at rene@newspapertree.com