Border Assault Case Against Boy Dropped : Tensions: Parties involved profess satisfaction as Mexican youth gets probation on lesser charge after being accused of assaulting Border Patrol officer.

Closing a case that had spotlighted tensions along the U.S.-Mexico border, federal prosecutors Tuesday dismissed felony charges that a 15-year-old Mexican boy assaulted a Border Patrol officer.

The teen-ager pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of illegally entering the United States.

Under the deal, Manuel Quezada de la Torre was sentenced to six months probation. He could have drawn as much as three years behind bars in connection with an Oct. 21 scuffle near a San Ysidro cul de sac that left a Border Patrol agent with a split lip and the teen-ager with a gash in his head. Both required medical attention.

In court documents, the Border Patrol alleged that Quezada punched the agent. The 5-foot-1, 98-pound teen-ager claimed the agent whipped him with a flashlight.

Prosecutors said Tuesday that the plea bargain was simply the right thing to do--for the Border Patrol, for the boy and for international relations. The case, which had been set Tuesday to go to trial, had produced a formal request from Mexican diplomats in San Diego for an investigation.

“To be quite honest, the reason we did this was because of a sincere interest, a desire to work out a solution amicable to all parties,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Jay Alvarez said after a brief hearing before U.S. Magistrate Roger Curtis McKee. “I think it worked out best for both sides.”

“I’m glad it’s over,” Quezada said after the hearing, calling the case “strange and intimidating.”

Mexican diplomats in San Diego had called the case worrisome, saying that reports by Mexican migrants of Border Patrol abuse are fairly common. In a Nov. 15 letter to U.S. authorities, officials at the Mexican Consulate formally asked for an investigation.

The consulate had not yet received a response to that request, spokesman Miguel Escobar said Tuesday. It was unclear whether the request will still be pursued because the consulate is eager to preserve good relations with U.S. authorities, he said.

But, Escobar said, “We never believed that a 15-year-old boy, who looks like 12--very slender, very small--did actually attack the officers of the Border Patrol. You don’t try to attack someone as big and as well conditioned as these guys, who carry pistols.

“We feel this is the type of non-acceptable situation in which our people are accused of doing something that by mere logic they couldn’t have done,” Escobar said. “On the other hand, we feel quite satisfied by the decision of the judge.”

Border Patrol officials also expressed satisfaction.

“The message we wanted to convey has been successfully conveyed--it is illegal to assault a federal officer, it is a prosecutable offense, and it is not acceptable and intolerable,” said spokesman Steve Kean. “But, considering the boy’s age, the conviction on the lesser of the two charges is satisfactory.”

Prosecution documents filed in federal court in San Diego said the teen-ager attacked Border Patrol Agent Farrell F. Fisher, punching the agent in the mouth and splitting his lip.

In response, the documents said, Fisher pushed Quezada, and the teen-ager fell back against a 6-foot wall at the west end of Arbodar Street in San Ysidro, then onto the ground, splitting his head open.

Quezada said he hit no one. He claimed he was attacked while on the way from Tepetongo, a small town in the central Mexican state of Zacatecas, to visit relatives in Los Angeles.

Scrambling over the wall, Quezada said, he and a guide encountered Fisher. They jumped to the ground and, while coming down, the guide accidentally kicked the agent in the mouth, Quezada said.

The guide fled, Quezada said, leaving him alone with the injured agent, who he said whacked him on the head with a flashlight while he lay on the ground screaming for help.

Fisher required two stitches in the lip. Quezada’s gash was closed with three staples.

Quezada’s immigration status remained uncertain Tuesday. Pending a deportation hearing, the Immigration and Naturalization Service released the teen-ager to his uncle, Fernando Quezada, 24, a hospital custodian who lives in El Monte, Maguire said.

Manuel Quezada’s father, Teofilo Quezada, 36, who attended Tuesday’s hearing, is scheduled Jan. 21 to receive a treasured “green card,” enabling him to live legally in the United States. If Teofilo Quezada is granted resident alien status, he said he will then seek INS permission to keep his son in this country.