The conviction of Iran/Contra whistleblower Celerino "Cele" Castillo III late last year on federal charges of dealing in firearms without a license is beginning to look more and more like a travesty of justice.

Among the latest revelations in the case is the fact that Castillo was being represented by a lawyer who was in the process of having his bar license suspended for allegedly bilking clients out of money. On top of that, this same lawyer's son was facing serious gun charges in another federal court in Texas at the same time he was representing Castillo.

Those facts on there own create a huge conflict of interest for that attorney in handling Castillo's case, given that both situations would have made it extremely difficult for that lawyer to provide a vigorous defense for his client. In the back of his mind, the attorney had to worry about his future, and that of his son's, should he run afoul of the prosecutor in Castillo's case, according to attorneys and law enforcers who spoke with Narco News.

"Everything [in the case] is tainted by the lawyer trying to get out from under things, particularly in relation to his son," says Reber Boult, a civil rights and criminal defense attorney who serves as co-legal director for the ACLU of New Mexico. "He couldn't do anything that the prosecutor didn't like.

"...Even if we assume the government [the prosecutor] did everything by the book, his [Castillo's] lawyer still seems to have opened himself up to allegations of providing ineffective assistance of counsel."

Castillo's case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas, which is overseen by Johnny Sutton, a close personal friend of former president George W. Bush. During his tenure as a U.S. Attorney, Sutton has been at the center of a number of controversial criminal cases, some of which have elicited national outrage.

Among those who have been outraged by Sutton's conduct is Sandalio Gonzalez, a retired DEA agent who used to oversee the agency's field office in El Paso, Texas. Gonzalez is even more pointed in his analysis of Castillo's case and his problematic attorney.

"I have no doubt that if Sutton was aware of all this, he would have used it to put pressure on Cele's attorney," Gonzalez says. "Those guys have no scruples."

Prosecutors under Sutton's watch put Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean in a federal prison facing sentences of 10 years-plus for shooting a drug smuggler in the posterior, a case that fermented national protest (primarily from the political right) and eventually led Bush to commute their sentences just prior to leaving office in mid-January.

Johnny Sutton also oversaw the infamous House of Death case in which a U.S. government informant assisted in the torture and murders of at least a dozen people between August 2003 and mid-January 2004 in Juarez, Mexico (just across the border from El Paso, Texas, which is part of Sutton's district). Despite claims by the informant that his U.S. handlers were aware of those murders, often in advance, Sutton's office allowed the informant to continue his bloody work and later cut a plea deal with the Juarez narco-trafficker (Heriberto Santillan Taberas) who had ordered the murders - a deal that included dropping the murder charges against him. Sutton then used his pull within the U.S. Justice Department to retaliate against and silence former El Paso Special Agent in Charge Sandalio Gonzalez, who sought to expose the government's complicity in the murders after a DEA agent and his family were nearly murdered by Santillan's men.

On top of that, the Bush administration, through the Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department attorneys, initiated deportation proceedings against the informant, Guillermo Ramirez Peyro, who claims he will be murdered by the narco-traffickers he betrayed if he is returned to Mexico. Despite an immigration judge ruling twice that Ramirez Peyro's claims are valid, the Bush administration continued to push for his deportation - some argue, including Gonzalez, in order to silence the informant and protect the U.S. law enforcers and prosecutors involved in the cover-up of their roles in the Juarez atrocities. Ramirez Peyro's case is now pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit - where it is now up to President Obama's Justice Department to determine whether or not to continue pushing for Ramirez Peyro's deportation.

And now there is the case of Castillo.

Committing The Truth

Castillo is a former DEA agent who played a key role in exposing the U.S. government's role in narco-trafficking as part of the Iran/Contra scandal.

Castillo, while a DEA agent in Central America in the 1980s, during the Reagan/Bush administration, uncovered evidence that the CIA and the White House National Security Council, through San Antonio, Texas, native and national counter-terrorism coordinator Lt. Col. Oliver North and other CIA assets, were carrying out illegal operations at two hangers at Ilopango Airport in El Salvador. Those airport hangars, Castillo contends, served as weapons and narcotics transshipment centers for funding and arming the U.S.-backed Contra counter-insurgency against the government of Nicaragua.

From that moment forward, Castillo became a target of those pulling the strings in that dirty war.

"Cele became a household word inside DEA," says Gonzalez, who worked in Latin America at the same time Castillo was stationed in the region. "They ruined his reputation over the stuff that happened in El Salvador [Iran/Contra] and he became a target. He took on the Establishment, and it didn't come out so good for him."

Castillo subsequently, after a 12-year career, retired from the DEA, but to this day he has remained an outspoken critic of the hypocrisy of the war on drugs, penning a book about his experiences in DEA, called Powderburns, and appearing on numerous radio and TV shows.

Recently Castillo, a decorated Vietnam veteran who has no prior criminal record, was convicted of dealing firearms without the proper license and sentenced to 37 months in a federal prison. (See prior Narco News story on Castillo's case here.)

Castillo made it clear to the judge in his case during testimony at an Oct. 1, 2008, court hearing that he believed there was a bull's-eye painted on his back due to his role as a whistleblower in the Iran/Contra scandal.

From the transcript of that Oct. 1 hearing:

One of the major problems I had with the government was that I got involved or initiated the Iran/Contra investigation back at that time in El Salvador, in Guatemala, with Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and I started reporting the incidents of drug trafficking and arms smuggling by several branches of our government. …

Several law enforcement agents who spoke with Narco News also are convinced that Castillo was targeted, even framed, by elements of the U.S. government because he had ruffled the wrong feathers.

That's a serious charge, but a closer look at Castillo's case doesn't do anything to put it to rest, particularly in light of the prior controversies surrounding Sutton's U.S. Attorney's Office in San Antonio.

Bait And Switch

Castillo was convicted of dealing guns without a government-issued license as part of a plea bargain hammered together at his sentencing hearing on Oct. 1 of last year. He arrived in court that day to be sentence on two other charges related to making straw gun purchases. Those charges had been pending since March of 2008, but had to be dropped by Sutton's office because they were, in essence, bogus.

The straw charges required evidence that Castillo had purchased guns from a "prohibited" person, specifically a convicted felon. The complaint sworn out by the ATF agent involved in Castillo's arrest claims an individual involved in selling guns to Castillo was, in fact, a convicted felon. Castillo claims that was a false charge, hence he argues the arrest violated his constitutional rights.

Castillo says the government has no evidence that he sold any guns, other than his own words, an honest admission that he did sell some hunting rifles - specifically shotguns used for bird hunting. Law enforcement officials who spoke with Narco News on background say it is highly unusual for the ATF to seek a criminal prosecution for dealing guns without a license unless there is evidence that prohibited individuals, such as convicted felons, were involved in those gun deals - and there is no evidence of that in Castillo's case, which is why the government had to drop the charges alleging he was a party to straw gun purchases. (A straw purchase is carried out when an individual purchases a gun from a licensed gun dealer for the sole purpose of reselling it to another individual. In those cases, based on court precedent in USA vs. Polk, no crime is committed if the transaction does not involve a prohibited person.)

Castillo contends he never bought or sold weapons from or to convicted felons, what's more trafficked arms in Mexico - another claim advanced in the ATF complaint that Castillo contends was false. In fact, the magistrate who signed the ATF complaint specifically struck the latter charge from the complaint, because there was no evidence supporting it.

Still, Sutton's office proceeded with the prosecution, arresting Castillo on what turned out to be a non-offense. And then, on Oct. 1, after his attorney, Robert "Eddie" De La Garza of San Antonio, had previously convinced him to plead out to those bogus charges, the prosecutor in the case, Mark T. Roomberg, informed Castillo that the charges would be dropped.

However, Roomberg also indicated that Sutton's office was going to go back to the grand jury and seek a new indictment on Castillo if he did not agree to a new plea deal that day in court, according to De La Garza and Castillo - who both provided Narco News their accounts of the sentencing hearing.

Castillo says he did not have the $15,000 or $20,000 it would take to fight the government all the way to trial, and his life, and that of his family's, had already been turned upside down for more than seven months while the bogus charges were pending against him - charges backed up by the word of a snitch (with no prior criminal record) who had sold Castillo some guns. (That snitch, who faced the same charges as Castillo, ultimately received a sentence of five years probation.)

So based on the word of his attorney, De La Garza, and what he believed to be a promise from the prosecutor, Roomberg, Castillo agreed to plead out a second time to two new charges of dealing in firearms without a license. The judge sentence him to 37 months, recommending a stay in a federal medical facility due to his multiple medical conditions - including diabetes, heart problems and post-traumatic stress disorder.

And that promise - that he would retain his DEA and other benefits and, according to his lawyer, likely only get probation - well, that didn't pan out. Castillo subsequently discovered that he will lose his DEA benefits and that other benefits, such as his Social Security payments, would be suspended while he is incarcerated. That means his family will not have the money to pay for health insurance, Castillo says.

De La Garza defends the plea deal, saying Castillo was facing "a roll of the dice." If he had not taken the deal, the government, he says, would have come at him with guns blazing and he might well have gotten far more time in jail.

"The government was not going away," De La Garza says. "The threat was that they would go to the next grand jury and they would throw a whole bunch of stuff at him, five or six more counts."

De La Garza claims where Castillo got the short stick was in the judge's application of the sentencing guidelines.

"There was a lot of discussion [by the prosecutor Roomberg at Castillo's sentencing hearing] … of 'we believe, we suppose, that the guns ended up in Mexico,' " De La Garza says. "So, for the purposes of the sentencing guidelines, extra points were added for trafficking and for extra weapons, when there was no proof of that. The judge applied those points; that's why he got three years [in jail]."

De La Garza also claims that in a discussion outside the courtroom that day, Oct. 1, Roomberg told him that Castillo would keep his benefits if he pled out to the new charges. And De La Garza says he relayed that information to Castillo.

"Cele did have a reason to believe he would keep his benefits," De La Garza says. However, De La Garza concedes that guarantee was never put into writing in the new plea deal that Castillo agreed to sign that day in court.

Attorney Boult points out that any such agreement about benefits should have been spelled out clearly in the plea deal.

"The attorney has to make clear to the client the meaning and consequences of the plea," he says.

The court transcripts of the Oct. 1 hearing in federal court in San Antonio demonstrate that the issue of Castillo's benefits was of high concern to the judge. Those transcripts likewise show the prosecutor, Roomberg, seemingly assuring the judge that Castillo's benefits would be safe under the plea deal - though he does employ slippery legal language that appears designed to insulate him from any responsibility should he turn out to be wrong.

From the court transcripts of the Oct. 1 hearing:

THE COURT: … I - I will not in any way do anything to remove your benefits, but there - there are instances where I understand in a sentencing a federal judge can remove the benefits that people receive from either Social Security, the Veteran's Administration, or whatever. It's not my plan to do that. Is the government planning to ask for that?

MR. ROOMBERG: No, Your Honor. In fact, in regards to the superseding information, the reason these particular charges were chosen, we could have picked another charge causing a false entry - causing a licensed firearm dealer to put a false entry into their book which would be more of a falsity crime and which to my understanding from talking to other attorneys would have a far greater impact than this would because it is not a criminal falsity crime, either the conspiracy or the one substantive count, it would not impact on that. I'm not an expert on that. We're not taking a position on it. We're certainly not seeking that from the Court. But that - that's our position.

THE COURT: Well, that's helpful, and I would not order it anyway. You've earned those benefits and -

THE DEFENDANT [Castillo]: I certainly appreciate that, sir.

THE COURT: I think you ought to keep those benefits.

THE DEFENDANT [Castillo]: Thank you, sir.

MR. DE LA GARZA: Yes, sir.

After all that, Castillo will now lose his benefits, he says.

Conflict Of Interest

Another subplot in Castillo's case that is playing out in the background is the fact that his lawyer's son was facing serious gun charges in a separate federal district in South Texas at the same time De La Garza was representing Castillo in federal court in San Antonio.

De La Garza's son, Andrew, in February 2007 was indicted on weapons charges as the result of an ATF investigation in McAllen, Texas - near the Mexican border. Andrew De La Garza was charged with making a false statement to a firearms dealer in acquisition of a firearm and possessing a firearm with an obliterated ID and was facing a potential 15-year prison stint. That case is still playing out in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Castillo's case is being heard in the Western District of Texas - prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for that district, led by Johnny Sutton.

De La Garza's kid was offered a plea deal on May 2, 2008, a couple weeks after his father took on Castillo's case. The prosecutor in the son's case agreed to drop one count "at the time of sentencing" and agreed to recommend a decrease in the offense level on the other count - a good deal that promised to substantially reduce the potential prison sentence. But clearly, that deal is still subject to the judge's discretion at the time of sentencing - as Castillo has since learned the hard way.

Castillo was initially assigned a court-appointed public defender for his case, who told Castillo that he could not help him, that "they [the government] got you," Castillo recalls.

At that point, Castillo says he put out the word through friends that he needed to find a good attorney. A short time later, Castillo claims De La Garza, an old college friend, contacted him and offered to represent him. So Castillo, in mid-April of this year, retained De La Garza as his attorney.

Added to that coincidence of events is the fact that sentencing dates in the case involving De la Garza's son have been postponed several times -- each time to move the date back past a crucial court date in Castillo's case. (The latest postponement pushed the kid's sentencing date back to late March, after Castillo is slated to report to prison.)

Castillo says he was aware early on that his attorney, De La Garza, had a potential conflict of interest in the case with respect to the charges against the son. But De La Garza, he says, assured him he should not worry about it. It is not clear at this point whether Roomberg or the judge were a ware of the gun case involving De La Garza's son, though De La Garza contends they were not. (Interestingly, Castillo alleges that there is one ATF agent who played a key role in both cases.)

Despite the fact that his son's fate was in the hands of the same federal judicial system seeking to punish Castillo, De La Garza told Narco News that "he did not feel any pressure" as a result of his son's pending case that in anyway affected his handling of Castillo's case.

But it gets stranger from there. After Castillo was sentenced to 37 months in jail on Oct. 22 as part of the second plea bargain, he discovered another hidden secret in this sorted tale of justice. It popped up in a legal publication called the Texas Bar Journal:

On Oct. 17, 2008, Roberto E. De LaGarza [#05646875], 56, of San Antonio, accepted a three-year, partially probated suspension effective Nov. 1, 2008, with the first year actively served and the remainder probated. The District 10-A Grievance Committee found in connection with a criminal matter, De La Garza requested and received payments from his client and client's sister to hire experts and make restitution payments to the victims, but kept the payments and subsequently claimed the sums paid as additional fees. De La Garza also agreed to pursue a civil matter for the client and requested a $5,000 retainer in addition to a contingent fee interest. De La Garza subsequently declined to pursue the civil claims but failed to refund any of the retainer or the filing fee. In an immigration matter, De La Garza was paid a $10,000 fee to obtain a resident visa for his client. De La Garza was terminated within three months, did not complete the visa application, and failed to refund unearned fees. De La Garza violated Rules 1.15(d) and 8.04(a)(3). He was ordered to pay $2,500 in attorney's fees and expenses and $23,000 in restitution.

So it seems Castillo's attorney knew he was facing a bar suspension when he told Castillo to cop the plea on Oct. 1, and knew at Castillo's sentencing date on Oct. 22 that his law license was being suspended within a matter of days. The one person who did not know all of this was Castillo himself, until after he began trying to pull together the case files and other information to help put together his post-conviction appeal.

Despite repeated attempts by Castillo and his appeals attorney to retrieve the case files from De La Garza, they were stonewalled, Castillo claims, until last week (about a month before he is supposed to report to prison), when the files finally showed up at the office of the court-appointed attorney now handling his appeal.

Narco News contacted De La Garza on Jan. 25 to interview him for this story. During that phone interview, De La Garza volunteered that he had just gotten the files together.

"I have to get those files to the appellate attorney," he said during the interview. "They will need to review them."

De La Garza claims the bar suspension all stems from a big misunderstanding. He says the problem revolves around a single past client who, De La Garza alleges, made claims that were not true. Unfortunately, De La Garza says he failed to keep adequate documentation in that case to refute the claims.

"They [the Texas Bar] offered me a deal, and I knew I was winding down my law practice anyway, going into my own business, so I decided to settle," De La Garza says.

De La Garza previously told Castillo, and Narco News, that he was taking a job with the state of Texas effective Nov. 1, which is why, he said at the time, that he could not handle Castillo's post-conviction appeal.

And if this Greek tragedy did not already have enough twists, Castillo claims that De La Garza told him he received a phone call from Assistant U.S. Attorney Roomberg, within days of Narco News publishing (on Nov. 1) its first story on his case. Roomberg delivered a terse message to De La Garza, Castillo claims.

"Roomberg called my attorney," Castillo says, "saying the [Narco News'] story made his office look bad." (De La Garza was also quoted in that story.]

Narco News called Del La Garza back twice, seeking to verify Castillo's claim, but he did not return the calls after the Jan. 25 interview. Narco News also attempted to contact Roomberg for comment for this story, leaving a message on his answering machine, but he did not return the call.

Then, in mid-January, Castillo says he got word from the Bureau of Prisons informing him that he would not be serving his time in a medical facility, as the judge had recommended. Rather, he is now being sent to the federal prison in La Tuna, New Mexico. At this point, Castillo says he is not certain where he will be housed in the prison, or what kind of protection will be offered to him, given he is going in as former DEA agent - not a popular career badge to be carrying in the pen.

"I find this all unbelievable," says former DEA agent Mike Levine, who provided a supportive letter to the judge hearing Castillo's case that praises Castillo's long record of service to the country. "There is either something about the case that we don't know, or there is, pure and simple, a lot of payback for Cele's activism going on, I get the sense that someone with real power with a lot of hatred for Cele is getting off on twisting the knife."

Castillo reports to prison on March 5 of this year. He is hoping the judge will allow him to stay out on bail while his post-conviction appeal is pending. The status of that appeal is not clear from the court docket, though on Jan. 30 Castillo's appellate attorney filed a new motion with the court, which is sealed.

Johnny Sutton is still in control of the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Antonio. President Obama is apparently proceeding deliberately in reviewing which of the Bush U.S. Attorneys will be asked to stay onboard in the new administration.

From a Jan. 5 story in the publication Legal Times:

In a meeting last month with Barack Obama's transition staff, representatives of the nation's top prosecutors caught a glimpse of the president-elect's thinking on the politically fraught issue of what to do with the current 93 U.S. Attorneys.

"[The president-elect] is going to be smart and be cautious. My gut feeling is it won't be like it was in 1993," said U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of Texas' Western District, a member of the Attorney General's Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys.

… Sutton declined to characterize Ogden's comments but said he left the meeting with the impression that the president-elect will address the U.S. Attorneys individually. "I think they're going to work on a case-by-case basis," said Sutton, who as a member of the Bush-Cheney transition took part in similar meetings before he was a committee member.

In that "case-by-case" analysis, it would seem Castillo's case is one the Obama administration should not overlook in deciding the future course of justice in this country. Time will tell.

Stay tuned...

Dateline Report On CIA Drug Trafficking Into The US

Government Complicity In Drug Trafficking

And Castillo tells Narco News that he also has caused the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which led the investigation against him in the firearms case, some heartburn in recent months. Castillo says earlier this year he went to City Hall and later to the newspaper in Pharr, Texas, to expose ATF agents who, he claims, were clandestinely filming shows at the Pharr Convention Center and racially profiling Hispanics attending the shows - sometimes showing up at their homes after the shows demanding to see the weapons they purchased legally.

Castillo also claims, as part of his part-time work as a consultant on criminal cases, he had uncovered evidence that two ATF agents "were on the payroll of a Mexican cartel."

"One informant, who actually paid one of these ATF agents in Monterrey, Mexico, told me about their involvement," Castillo asserts. "That informant later got whacked. They [the ATF brass] know who these corrupt agents are, but they don't want to deal with the embarrassment of cleaning the whole mess up."

The Case

Castillo was arrested in early March of this year in San Antonio on the basis of an ATF complaint strewn with allegations unconstrained by evidence and the word of a snitch trying to save his own neck.

The snitch, Jay Lemire, was confronted by ATF agents in February of this year concerning a series of alleged "straw" firearm purchases he made from licensed firearms dealers, according to court pleadings. Under U.S. law, an individual purchasing a firearm from a licensed dealer must fill out a form swearing to the fact that he or she is the true purchaser of the weapon. The purpose of the rule is to prevent "straw" transactions where the purchaser later provides the weapon to a "prohibited person" - such as a convicted felon.

According to the ATF complaint against Lemire, he admitted to making numerous straw purchases and claimed that they were made on behalf of Castillo. Lemire then became a snitch for the ATF in an attempt to ensnare Castillo. The ATF plan of attack included having Lemire make numerous phone calls to Castillo about weapons purchases, which Lemire recorded, and also setting up surveillance on Castillo.

The ATF complaint later filed in court against Castillo, which became the basis for the criminal indictment, attempts to paint Castillo as a major arms trafficker who was acquiring guns from Lemire in order to resell them in Mexico. But it offers no evidence that Castillo ever had contact with anyone from Mexico, what's more sold weapons into Mexico. Castillo also insists that he never sold guns in Mexico or to individuals who trafficked arms in Mexico.

Castillo concedes that he did purchase some guns, primarily hunting rifles or shotguns to be sold or traded at gun shows, from Lemire, whom he trusted and considered a fellow gun enthusiast. However, he claims that Lemire was reselling guns to a number of individuals and that the ATF falsely tried to pin all of Lemire's gun sales on him - some 35 purchases listed in the indictment.

It was on the basis of that evidence, however, that Castillo was arrested and indicted earlier this year and charged with two counts of making illegal straw purchases - and faced a potential 10-year sentence. Initially, Castillo was assigned a court-appointed public defender, who told Castillo that he could not help him, that "they [the government] got you," Castillo recalls.

At that point, Castillo says he put out the word through friends that he needed to find a good attorney. A short time later, Castillo claims attorney Roberto "Eddie" De La Garza of San Antonio, an old college friend, contacted him and offered to represent him. So Castillo, in mid-April of this year, retained De La Garza as his attorney.

"I told him [De La Garza] that I had very little money," Castillo says. "But he charged me very little [to take on the case] but said he wanted $15,000 if the case goes to trial, but that he normally charges $20,000 or $25,000."

The truth was, Castillo says, he didn't even have the $15,000 for the case, should it go to trial. Castillo had purchased weapons from Lemire and there was evidence of that fact, so De La Garza arranged a plea deal in June, which Castillo accepted, expecting a lenient sentence because he says De La Garza insisted the judge was fair and Castillo had a record of exemplary service to his country.

After several delays, a sentencing date was set for Oct. 1 before Judge W. Royal Furgeson Jr. in federal court in San Antonio.

Castillo says he was aware early on that his attorney, De La Garza, had a potential conflict of interest in the case. But De La Garza, he says, assured him he should not worry about it.

De La Garza's son, Andrew, in February 2007 was indicted on weapons charges as the result of an ATF investigation in McAllen, Texas - near the Mexican border. Andrew De La Garza was charged with making a false statement to a firearms dealer in acquisition of a firearm and possessing a firearm with an obliterated ID and was facing a potential 15-year prison stint. That case was playing out in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Castillo's case was being heard in the Western District of Texas - prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for that district, led by Johnny Sutton.

On May 2, 2008, within weeks of De La Garza taking on Castillo's case, a plea deal was reached in the case involving De La Garza's son. The prosecutor in the case agreed to drop one count "at the time of sentencing" and agreed to recommend a decrease in the offense level on the other count - a good deal that promised to substantially reduce the potential prison sentence. But clearly, that deal was still subject to the judge's discretion at the time of sentencing.

After being rescheduled a couple times, the sentencing date in Andrew De La Garza's case was set for Oct. 14, a little less than two weeks after Castillo's Oct. 1 sentencing date, according to the court docket for the case.

Despite the fact that his son's fate was in the hands of the same federal judicial system seeking to punish Castillo, Eddie De La Garza told Narco News that "he did not feel any pressure" as a result of his son's pending case that in anyway affected his handling of Castillo's case.

When Castillo showed up in federal court in San Antonio on Oct. 1 with De La Garza, he was dealt a surprise that, at first, must have seemed to lift the weight of the world from his shoulders. The prosecutor informed Castillo's attorney that the straw gun-purchase charges pending against his client had to be dropped, because, due to case law precedent, they didn't apply in Castillo's case. In other words, Castillo was not guilty of a crime in purchasing firearms from Lemire.

From a motion filed by the U.S. prosecutor to dismiss the indictment against Castillo:

United States v. Polk … precludes an individual being charged with [a crime] where the straw purchaser bought a firearm for an individual who was not a prohibited person [such as a convicted felon]. The defendant [Castillo] … was not a prohibited person.

That's right. Castillo had just spend some seven months in a judicial vice as a result of bogus charges brought by the U.S. Attorney's office in San Antonio.

But there was a catch, of course. Before agreeing to dismiss the bogus charges, the U.S. prosecutor said Castillo would have to plead guilty to two new charges of dealing firearms without a license. Castillo says he was told that if he refused to do so, then Sutton's office would re-indict him on four new counts and he would be arrested again and forced to battle the system with even more serious charges pressed against him - and still no money for the fight.

So, at his attorney's urging, according to Castillo, right there in court, after only being allowed to skim through the new plea deal, he signed off on the new agreement - to charges that involved the same sentencing guidelines as the bogus charges that would be dismissed.

However, Castillo claims De La Garza told him he was confident in the fairness of the judge and that he would likely receive probation, or at worst a year of home confinement. In addition, Castillo alleges the prosecutor told De La Garza, and later the judge, that the plea deal would assure that Castillo would not lose his DEA or other government health and retirement benefits - a promise that Castillo says he has since discovered was as bogus as the initial straw gun-purchase charges brought against him.

"There was evidence of him [Castillo] selling guns," De La Garza says. "And even if that evidence was not substantive, they [the prosecutors] could have proven a conspiracy. If he [Castillo] had not taken that [new] plea, they could have brought in multiple new charges. I would not have pled out if it was not in the best interest of my client."

If that evidence exists, we'll never know now, it seems, since it will never have to be produced in a trial before a jury of Castillo's peers.

And so the deal was struck, and Castillo walked out of court that day facing yet another sentencing date on Oct. 22. Coincidentally, nine days later, on Oct. 10, the sentencing date for De La Garza's son was pushed back, to Dec. 15, the court docket in the case shows.

Mike Levine is a former DEA agent who provided a supportive letter to the judge hearing Castillo's case that praises Castillo's long record of service to the country. Levine, who now works as an expert witness in court cases and has a radio show in New York City, had this to say about De La Garza's apparent conflict of interest in Castillo's case:

In the best of all possible cases, this attorney takes on Cele's [Castillo's] case with a natural reluctance to go to trial against those who held his son's future in their hands. …

Of course one cannot say this is what happened with certainty; however, the fact that this outcome is a reasonable possibility should have been enough to indicate to the court - if the court was aware of this conflict of interest - that Cele needed a different attorney. And under the stewardship of Mr. Sutton, who has already placed himself well above the laws of God and man, this particular arrangement just sucks....

On sentencing day, Oct. 22, the prosecutor took it to Castillo, even bringing before the judge the unproven ATF allegations that Castillo was trafficking arms in Mexico, both Castillo and De La Garza confirm. The judge, despite De La Garza's assurance to Castillo, came down hard on Castillo - sentencing him to 37 months in prison plus two years of probation after release - and, as a result, a loss of his DEA and other government retirement and medical benefits for at least the period of incarceration and possibly forever.

Castillo is now all but broke, wondering how his wife and children will survive while he is locked up, wondering if he will ever see his 84-old mother again outside the walls of a prison, and consigned to a fate that he himself concedes he helped to create by "screwing up."

As a former DEA agent, Castillo understands how the legal system works - or doesn't work. He confesses that he was too trusting; even foolish, though not criminal, in his actions when he knew he was a target of the government; and somewhat reckless in ignoring the gut instinct that all cops have to watch their backs when under attack.

The one telling thing Castillo said was that after years of battling the system, "as we get older, we kind of lose the fight in us."

It seems Castillo was willing to take a hit on this travesty of justice, believing and trusting, by his attorney's word, that he would only get probation and keep his benefits, and avoid a trial he couldn't afford and the great risk of being put away for a long time if he was convicted (railroaded) and the consequence that would have on his family.

Maybe Castillo did technically break the law in that he sold a handful of guns without the proper license, a paperwork crime that should merit a paperwork punishment - not three years of prison. He wanted to believe the system would be fair, even though he should have known better.

Former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean are now each doing 10-plus years in a federal pen for shooting a known drug smuggler in the posterior after he fled from a van packed full of dope - a prosecution courtesy of Johnny Sutton that has been the subject of a congressional hearing.

Sutton's office continues to prosecute people like Castillo (a decorated war veteran with no prior criminal record), destroying lives for political gain, for case stats, even though Sutton himself has been accused of enabling grave transgressions against humanity - such as turning a blind eye to an informant's role in the torture and murders of more than a dozen people in the House of Death in Juarez, Mexico, and then assisting in the subsequent cover-up of the U.S. government's role in the bloodshed.

Castillo should have seen it coming, but he was tired of the struggle, and just wanted to rest, and in that moment, when his guard was down, after he failed to appease the bureaucracy with the proper paperwork, they nailed him to the cross.

"This is the kind of stuff [Castillo's case] that happens in nations ruled by dictatorships," says former DEA commander Gonzalez, who exposed Sutton's role in the House of Death murders and suffered the swift injustice of retaliation from the minions of the Bush Administration as a result - resulting in Gonzalez being denied deserved promotions and leading him to take an early retirement.

"I'm not surprised this happened in Sutton's district," Gonzalez adds. "He and his people did a whole lot of egregious things in the House of Death case, and still they are allowed to go around prosecuting people. It's amazing."