Pubdate: Mon, 20 Jul 2009
Source: El Paso Times (TX)
Copyright: 2009 El Paso Times
Contact: http://www.elpasotimes.com/formnewsroom
Website: http://www.elpasotimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/829
Author: Diana Washington Valdez, Staff Writer

FORMER ICE AGENT AWAITS RULING ON JOB REINSTATEMENT

EL PASO -- A former Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who was
fired earlier this year is trying to get his job back.

Raul M. Bencomo, 47, a former ICE senior special agent, said he was
wrongfully fired in part because of his role in a Juarez case that
involved a dozen drug cartel murders.

"I was singled out because I was the lowest-level member involved in
the case," Bencomo said. "I had a clean record. I even took a
polygraph for the (Merit Systems Protection) board hearing and passed
it. I believe I was made the scapegoat."

The Merit Systems Protection Board -- an independent, quasi-judicial
agency in the executive branch that presides over federal employee
appeals -- is receiving final arguments on Bencomo's petition to be
reinstated. After that, the board has 120 days to render its decision.

Bencomo is one of several U.S. officials who were at the center of an
undercover ICE investigation that began in 2003 and ended later when
the Drug Enforcement Administration learned its DEA agents in Juarez
had become cartel targets.

Bencomo, who had been on administrative leave with pay since 2004, was
fired on Feb. 10. The agency would not say why he was let go.

"It's ICE policy not to comment on personnel actions," ICE spokeswoman
Leticia Zamarripa said.

Bencomo first joined the U.S. Customs Service in 1998, and became an
investigator for ICE when the new agency began operating in El Paso.

In 2004, Mexican officials acting on a U.S. tip unearthed the bodies
of 12 men from the backyard of a Juarez house in the Acequias
subdivision. A Chihuahua state police commander was implicated in the
deaths.

The case led to a U.S. federal indictment against Heriberto
Santillan-Tabares, an alleged lieutenant in the Vicente Carrillo
Fuentes drug organization who was arrested in El Paso. He was
sentenced to 25 years in prison. The U.S. government first charged
Santillan with five counts of murder for the Mexico killings because
they occurred in the context of a drug-trafficking enterprise that
spread into the United States.

In a plea bargain, the murder charges were dropped and he was
sentenced on a charge of continuing criminal conspiracy for drug smuggling.

The slaying case first came to light after ICE informant Guillermo
Eduardo Ramirez Peyro tipped off ICE officials about the first of the
12 slayings. Bencomo was one of his handlers.

Bencomo said ICE agents listened to a recording of the first murder
Ramirez had taped, and notified supervisors who reportedly decided to
continue with the investigation.

Ramirez, a former Mexican federal highway policeman, previously said
cartel operatives killed 11 more people.

The case became controversial when ICE memos surfaced that suggested
the agency knew the slayings were going on and did not try to stop
them.

ICE officials have denied any wrongdoing.

Ramirez, who is in U.S. custody in Minnesota, is fighting the U.S.
government's efforts to deport him to Mexico. He alleges he will be
killed if he is sent back.

The Mexican investigation into the 12 deaths came to a standstill
after the official overseeing the Acequias case, Santiago Vasconcelos,
died in a plane crash Nov. 4 in Mexico City. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr