Published: December 08, 2009 08:58 pm
DA loses his man
Mark Millican

The long arm of federal law has reached into the Whitfield County court system and taken a man accused of vehicular homicide away from being prosecuted here.

Ismael Lopez-Rodriguez, 36, formerly of 119 Gay St. in Dalton, was charged in August by the Georgia State Patrol with vehicular homicide in the death of Chatsworth motorcyclist Audie Burnette on the South Bypass. He was also charged with failure to yield, driving on an expired license, failure to register a vehicle within 30 days of moving to Georgia and failure to get a Georgia driver’s license within 30 days of moving to the state.

A week after the wreck, Lopez-Rodriguez was charged by the Dalton Police Department with identity theft, first degree forgery and making false statements. He was determined then to be in the country illegally, according to officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who placed a hold on him at the Whitfield County Jail. ICE came to get their man on Wednesday, leaving the district attorney’s office without a case.

“I’ve been contemplating a way to get him back, but ICE will probably deport him before we can prosecute,â€