ICE agent faces assault, false report charges for January shooting of Venezuelan man
A Minnesota county filed criminal charges against a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer who allegedly wounded a Venezuelan man in January. The charges are the latest legal moves from state officials against the federal government resulting from Operation Metro Surge.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty filed the charges on Monday against Christian Castro, an ICE agent, for wounding a Venezuelan man on Jan. 14. She noted that the injured man and another person initially faced federal charges, but a judge dropped charges against them due to discrepancies in statements and evidence. ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons said in February that lying under oath is a “serious federal offense.”
Prosecutors cannot retry the two Venezuelan men, whom Moriarty identified as Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis and Alfredo Alejandro Ajorna.
Moriarty said Castro allegedly shot Sosa-Celis, who is legally present in the U.S., in the leg. Another bullet was lodged in a child’s bedroom wall, Moriarty said.
Castro faces four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime, Moriarty said. She alleged that Castro shot through the front door of a home “with the intent to cause fear of immediate bodily harm or death” to the four people inside.
“These charges have activated a nationwide warrant for his arrest,” Moriarty told reporters.
An ICE spokesperson called the officials’ actions “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt,” in an email to Straight Arrow News. The agencies placed agents in connection with the shooting under internal investigations for allegedly lying under oath in February. Neither their statuses nor names have been made public.
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office is actively investigating these statements,” the spokesperson wrote. “Upon conclusion of the investigation, the officers may face disciplinary action, including termination of employment, as well as potential criminal prosecution.”
Moriarty expects DHS to move the case to federal court, but said that if Castro is convicted, he would be ineligible for a pardon because the charges are state-based.
“American jurisprudence has recognized for a long time that there is no absolute immunity, as the county attorney said, when a federal agent violates the criminal laws of a state,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said at the briefing.
Feds claimed wounded man was in US illegally
The shooting first became known when DHS said in a Jan. 15 post to X that they attempted to arrest the man, who then allegedly attempted to flee the area before crashing his car.
The agency then claimed the man — now known as Sosa-Celis — “violently assaulted the officer.” Two unrelated people came out of a nearby home and allegedly attacked the officer with a snow shovel and broom handle, DHS claimed.
The department went on to say Castro was being ambushed and attacked before firing a “defensive shot” and hitting Sosa-Celis in the leg. The January post is still available on X and DHS’s site. Neither has been updated to reflect Lyons’ statement that the agents lied.
“Mr. Castro was not under any physical threat when he fired his weapon or even beforehand,” Moriarty said. “He was not hit by a shovel or a broom. In fact, he was not hit at all.”
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
