Thread: Questions linger about the 'House of Death'

Posted on Sun, May. 20, 2007
Questions linger about the 'House of Death'



By DAVE MONTGOMERY
Star-Telegram Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The code phrase was carne asada -- a barbecue -- and when word went out that one was going to be held at the two-story residence in Juarez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, it meant that one of Mexico's powerful drug cartels planned to kill a perceived double-crosser or rival operative.
It has been dubbed the "House of Death," where at least a dozen people were tortured, executed and buried. And more than three years after the bodies were unearthed from the back yard, the story is still being replayed and reviewed in unresolved legal disputes and through allegations of misconduct by U.S. agents.

The accusations, part of a lawsuit against the U.S. government, are based on disclosures that an informant who made more than $200,000 working for federal law enforcement "supervised" one of the slayings and knew of or witnessed other killings. The informant's handlers in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, continued to use him after learning about the first killing in August 2003.

The informant, Guillermo Eduardo Ramirez-Peyro, a former high-ranking cartel figure, is in protective custody in the United States, where he is fighting government attempts to deport him. Returning to Mexico, he asserts, would mean certain death at the hands of drug lords.

Double life

Ramirez was a mole for ICE while serving as a lieutenant to Heriberto Santillan-Tabares, also known as "El Ingeniero," a chieftain in a Juarez-based cartel who ordered the killings. Immigration transcripts, depositions and ICE documents describe Ramirez's double life, providing chilling details of the carnage on Parsioneros Street, as well as an insider's account of the violent Mexican drug trade.

He has acknowledged witnessing two executions, one of which he taped. He also bought duct tape and lime for body disposal, supervised burials and arranged the use of the house for a carne asada. One day, hit men brought a body to the house, threw it under the staircase and returned about 45 minutes later with another body wrapped in black plastic. They dumped that one in the kitchen.

"Santillan spoke with me that he was going to 'grill some more meat'; in other words, they were going to kill some people," Ramirez said in recalling an execution.

Ramirez also tells of hit squads composed of corrupt police officers and high-ranking law enforcement officers involved in the drug trade.

Since the story came to light in early 2004, the House of Death has received little public attention. The most extensive reports have been online in The Narco News Bulletin.

The findings of an internal inquiry that included interviews with more than 40 people have never been released, prompting allegations of a cover-up.

Agencies involved in various aspects of the case include the Justice Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration and ICE, now a branch of the Homeland Security Department.

Accusations have also been aimed at the office of U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of San Antonio, who has recently been criticized for prosecuting two Border Patrol agents in the shooting of a drug courier and a South Texas sheriff's deputy who fired on a carload of immigrants.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Juanita Fielden, assigned to Sutton's El Paso division, was a member of the task force investigating the cartel and is a defendant in the lawsuit, now pending in El Paso federal court. The wrongful-death suit was filed by families of six of the victims.

Sutton involvement

Sandalio Gonzalez of Miami, a retired DEA supervisor who wants Congress to investigate the case, has accused Sutton of retaliating against him after Gonzalez wrote a fiery letter to his ICE counterpart in February 2004. A copy of the letter was also hand-delivered to the U.S. attorney's office in El Paso.

Gonzalez, who was the DEA's chief in El Paso, accused ICE of mishandling the investigation, going to "extreme lengths" to protect a "homicidal maniac" informant, endangering the lives of DEA agents and allowing subsequent slayings by continuing to use Ramirez.

The letter caused an uproar that reached Washington. E-mails produced in a whistle-blower retaliation case filed by Gonzalez indicated that Sutton called Justice Department officials in Washington expressing concern about "a rather lengthy and inflammatory letter" from the DEA supervisor.

"Johnny was not sure who was talking, but we are certainly concerned that there may be press, and there may be inquiries here in DC as well," Associate Deputy Attorney General Catherine O'Neil wrote in March 4, 2004, e-mail to other Justice Department officials and DEA Administrator Karen Tandy, a Fort Worth native. On the subject line, she wrote: "Possible press involving the DEA Juarez/ICE informant issue."

"DEA HQ officials were not aware of our el paso SAC's inexcusable letter until last evening ..." Tandy said in an e-mail the next day. "I apologized to Johnny Sutton last night and he and I agreed on a 'no comment' to the press."

Gonzalez, in his whistle-blower petition, said the DEA chief of operations called to admonish him and said that "Mr. Sutton was very upset" because his letter could provide evidence that would hurt the government's case against Santillan.

The DEA lowered his performance review because of the "retaliatory" actions applied by Sutton, Gonzalez charged. The agent and the DEA later settled the claim in a confidential agreement "to my satisfaction," Gonzalez said in a telephone interview.

DEA officials have said that Gonzalez improperly went outside channels in sending the letter and should have first discussed his concerns with superiors.

Deputy DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart described Gonzalez in court testimony as a field boss who "did his job" but "wasn't the best of SACs," short for "special agents in charge."

Shana Jones, Sutton's spokeswoman, said the U.S. attorney is prevented from commenting because of the lawsuit, which is heavily based on Gonzalez's accounts. Officials for ICE and the DEA have declined to comment for the same reason.

Advance knowledge?

The Justice Department, in its response to the suit, acknowledges that Ramirez was a government informant who was "present at a murder in August of 2003." But it denies the lawsuit's assertions that ICE officials monitored the killing or that federal prosecutors and ICE agents were aware that the informant was participating in subsequent killings and kidnappings. Justice Department policy prohibits confidential informants from participating in violence.

However, Ramirez, under questioning in his immigration hearing, has testified that ICE agents had advance knowledge that murders would take place.

"Did you tell your ICE officers that you were aware that Mr. Santillan had ordered the deaths of people associated with the cartel?" he was asked.

"Yes," he responded.

"Did you tell them before, right before it happened?"

"Yeah, several occasions," Ramirez replied.

Career change

Ramirez was a Mexican highway police officer when he opted for a career change in the mid-1990s, serving as a distribution manager in the Mexican drug network before ultimately becoming Santillan's trusted second-in-command. Santillan was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2005 after pleading guilty to conducting a criminal enterprise. Other charges were dismissed as part of a plea agreement.

Ramirez became a U.S. operative after walking across an international bridge in 2000 and making contact with a U.S. customs officer. Ramirez explained that he "didn't like the way" the cartel operated and felt it would "be honorable" to work for U.S. law enforcement.

Ramirez went by the nickname "Lalo" and also used the alias "Jesus Contreras." His handlers, in their investigative reports, referred to him by his code name: SA-913-EP. During his four years of U.S. service, he was paid $224,650 and has testified that the government owes him $400,000, "more or less."

For a time, Ramirez was providing information to ICE and the DEA. But the DEA deactivated him after he was arrested at a Border Patrol checkpoint in Las Cruces, N.M., on June 28, 2003, with 100 pounds of marijuana concealed in his vehicle.

After the arrest, ICE group supervisor Todd Johnson contacted Assistant U.S. Attorney Fielden to tell her of the "unauthorized criminal activity on the part of the" confidential informant, Fielden said in an affidavit. Fielden and other officials met the next week and, after "a lengthy discussion," decided that SA-913-EP could continue to be effective as an ICE informant if he were "closely monitored."

Fielden said she then called the state prosecutor in New Mexico, who agreed to defer prosecution "as long as the CI cooperated."

Participating in murder?

Just over a month later, U.S. authorities learned of a far more serious matter after Ramirez told ICE agents about the Aug. 5, 2003, slaying of Juarez attorney Fernando Reyes Aguado. Ramirez briefed ICE agent Luis Garcia about the killing and Garcia later wrote that "SA-913-EP supervised the murder and had minimal participation in the act." Ramirez also recorded the killing, according to other documents.

Although Reyes was Santillan's childhood friend, the drug chieftain ordered the killing as part of a plot to seize a load of marijuana. Ramirez had been instructed to pose as the person responsible for transporting the marijuana after Santillan and another member of the cartel arrived at the house with the unsuspecting victim. After Santillan left, two police officers came out of a hiding place and put tape over Reyes' mouth.

Reyes "began to struggle with the judicial police and they asked me to help them get him to the floor," the informant said in a Feb. 12, 2004, affidavit. "They tried to choke him [with] an extension cord, but this broke and I gave them a plastic bag and they put it on his head and suffocated him."

When Santillan returned, "I informed him that the job had been completed," Ramirez said. "I asked the judicial police if they were sure that Fernando was dead." One then took a shovel "and hit him many times on the head until he was sure he was dead."

Ramirez also told of other slayings, including the Nov. 23, 2003, execution of two "drug mules" -- allegedly carried out by Miguel Loya, a police commander.

"Loya put tape around their head, but they could still breathe. And one of them began to moan loudly so Loya shot him in the head with a pistol with a silencer, but he didn't die immediately," Ramirez said. "Upon hearing this, the other one began to struggle and was shot in the head as well.

"After they were dead, Alex and I put them under the staircase of the Parsioneros house and later they were buried," Ramirez said. "They were killed because they were careless with their work taking the drugs across the border."

The slayings began to come to light in January 2004 after Santillan's enforcers tried to kidnap a Juarez-based DEA agent and his family because they mistakenly thought the agent's home was a stash house for a rival's drug supply. DEA agents were then removed from Juarez for their personal safety.

'Legal and proper'

Several weeks later, Gonzalez fired off his angry letter to Giovanni Gaudioso, who headed the ICE field office in El Paso.

Gonzalez said ICE personnel and the prosecutor displayed a "total disregard for human life" by ignoring DEA recommendations to "take down the investigation" after the killing of Reyes, thus allowing additional slayings to occur.

In her affidavit, Fielden said ICE management in El Paso and Washington approved the continued use of the informant after the 2003 killing. Fielden said she was unaware of other slayings until she interviewed the informant on Jan. 28-29, 2004. Gaudioso has said in an affidavit that he had no advance knowledge of any of the killings and defended ICE's handling of the case as "legal and proper."

He also said that the informant, in his briefing with ICE after the 2003 killing, denied participating in Reyes' slaying and had feared that Santillan wanted to kill him.

http://www.star-telegram.com/national_n ... 08624.html

SUTTONs name is all over this yet you will see his long term friends
bush and gonzalez say nothing and do nothing about it.