LAS CRUCES — The trial of a Las Cruces man charged with impersonating a Border Patrol agent ended in a mistrial Wednesday evening in District Court during the trial's second day.

After nearly three hours of deliberation, two of the 12 jurors reportedly believed David Ramos-Arenas, 36, was not guilty of detaining a woman in Mesquite last year while dressed as a border agent. The hung jury resulted in visiting District Judge Lee Vesely of Silver City declaring a mistrial.

Matthew Chandler, district attorney for the Ninth Judicial District in Clovis, said he plans to seek a retrial in the next six months. Chandler was brought in to prosecute the case because the alleged victim works for the local District Attorney's office.

"It highlights the importance of good jury selection," Chandler said of the mistrial. "It means we need to find the gray areas in our case and tighten those up."

Charged with impersonating a peace officer and false imprisonment, Ramos-Arenas could face a more than a two-year sentence if convicted.

"I'm excited that at least one juror accepted our version of the story," said Joseph Shattuck, a Las Cruces public defender representing Ramos-Arenas. "We've got to do it all over again. That's how the system works."

The alleged victim testified before Vesely Wednesday morning. The woman worked for the District Attorney's office in Las Cruces and was in Mesquite when she claims Ramos-Arenas attempted to detain her in March 2008.

She told jurors


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the suspect used his vehicle to block hers from leaving the area after dropping off witnesses in an unrelated case. He then approached her vehicle and told her that she had been transporting illegal immigrants, the victim testified.
"He said that I broke the law and that he had to take me somewhere," she said.

The victim said she began to get a bad feeling when the suspect refused to produce Border Patrol identification upon her request.

"He got upset with me and tapped on the window for me to lower it," she said. "I didn't know what he wanted. I just had a really bad feeling about what was happening."

The impostor later agreed to follow the victim back to the District Attorney's office, but then drove off in the opposite direction, she said.

The victim said she later identified Ramos-Arenas as the man who attempted to detain her after watching a television news clip on a TV station's Web site.

An employee with the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia took the stand later and confirmed Ramos-Arenas was enrolled in the center's Border Patrol academy in 2007. The employee said Ramos-Arenas was discharged because of his conduct prior to graduation.

In his closing argument, Chandler told jurors that Ramos-Arenas' face is one "that you won't forget, and it's a face that (the victim) didn't forget."

Shattuck argued that the victim should have been made to identify the suspect out of a lineup. "That's not a good identification. That's so suggestive," he said of the fact that investigators only presented the victim with one photograph of Ramos-Arenas during questioning. "That's wrong."

On March 20, 2008, Ramos-Arenas went to the Las Cruces Public Defender's Office, whose staff notified the Las Cruces Police Department he wanted to surrender to authorities. Detectives then took him into custody.

Ramos-Arenas is being held at the Doña Ana County Detention Center on one count of impersonating an officer and one count of false imprisonment.


Lauren E. Toney can be reached at ltoney@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5447

http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_11788196