Bill Conroy reports in the Narcosphere:
Iran/Contra whistleblower Celerino “Cele” Castillo III was scheduled to report to prison on March 5, but the power of justice has intervened on his behalf.
A federal judge in San Antonio, at a hearing held late last week, ruled that Castillo's report date to prison should be extended until July 20. The judge, W. Royal Furgeson Jr., issued his ruling over the objections of a federal prosecutor, who argued that Castillo should be sent to prison because he was a “danger to the community.”
The hearing was called by the judge to consider a motion to allow Castillo to remain free on bail through his appeal. The motion was filed by Castillo's current attorney, public defender Judy Fulmer Madewell.
“One of the government's arguments [made by the U.S. prosecutor, Mark T. Roomberg] as to why my client is a danger to the community is that he put an outrageous and erratic posting on his Web site,” Fulmer Madewell told the judge at the Feb. 19 hearing in federal court in San Antonio. “That story was actually written by someone else … so it was not an outrageous post by the defendant.”
In fact, Narco News originally published that story (U.S. government finally exacts revenge on Iran/Contra whistleblower Cele Castillo). The article raises serious questions about whether Castillo's prosecution was politically motivated.
Castillo was convicted late last year on federal charges of dealing firearms without a license in a case marked by numerous irregularities and peculiar coincidences that raise the specter of a frame-up.For example, Castillo was being represented by a lawyer who was in the process of having his bar license suspended for misappropriating his clients' funds. In fact, that attorney, Robert “Eddie” De La Garza, was aware on Oct. 17, 2008, (five days before Castillo's sentencing date on Oct. 22) that his Texas law license was being suspended effective Nov. 1, 2008.
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.
[ ... ]
Political Payback?
Johnny Sutton, a former assistant district attorney in Harris County, Texas, hitched his star to the Bush political machine in 1995, when he was named the Criminal Justice Policy Director for then-Governor Bush. He served in that post until 2000, when Bush was elected president. In the wake of Bush's victory, Sutton was named associate deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and also served as a policy coordinator for the Bush-Cheney presidential transition team.
In late October of 2001, Sutton was appointed by Bush to serve as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas in San Antonio. The U.S. Senate confirmed the appointment a month later.
Former President George W. Bush has described Sutton publicly as a “a dear friend of mine from Texas.”Castillo caused headaches in the 1980s for George W. Bush's father, then vice president of the U.S. under Ronald Reagan, and for a number of Reagan administration officials who later went on to serve in George W. Bush's administration. That fact can't be ignored given the Bush administration's history, as marked by various scandals, of assuring payback for its political enemies.
Castillo, a decorated Vietnam veteran who has no prior criminal record, on Oct. 22, 2008, was sentenced by Judge Furgeson to 37 months in a federal prison. On the advice of his attorney at that time (De La Garza), Castillo agreed on Oct. 1 to plead out to charges that he sold guns without a license after the original charges against him — making illegal gun purchases — were dropped after eight months because the prosecution had to concede they were bogus.
However, the prosecution threatened to re-indict Castillo on multiple other serious charges if he did not agree to cop a plea on the new charges. Castillo, with no money to take his case all the way to trial and already worn down from enduring months of fighting the bogus illegal gun-purchase charges, agreed to take the plea deal after De La Garza assured him that he would keep his DEA and veteran benefits so he could support his family. Castillo says De La Garza also told him that he likely would get probation given his background of service to the country.
Neither promise panned out.
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Castillo made it clear to Judge Furgeson during testimony at his Oct. 1, 2008, court hearing, however, that he had reason to be concerned about the course of justice in his case because 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. …
The Iran/Contra scandal, which played out during Reagan's second term as president, involved efforts to illegally raise funds for the Nicaraguan Contra's counter-insurgency against the government of Nicaragua via the sale of arms to Iran. The scandal also involved, as Castillo revealed in his whistleblowing at the time, funds raised from U.S.-sanctioned narcotics trafficking. Investigative journalist Gary Webb further bolstered Castillo's claims of the U.S. government's involvement in narco-trafficking in his now-famous Dark Alliance series published in 1996 by the San Jose Mercury News.
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 Contras.~ more... ~
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