Prosecutors Urge Voiding of Gun Case

The U.S. attorney’s office said Monday it will ask a federal judge to dismiss a gun possession case against an illegal immigrant who says he was framed by two Rampart police officers, one of whom has since been charged with perjury.

In a one-paragraph document filed in Los Angeles federal court, Assistant U.S. Atty. Thomas K. Buck said the government is taking the action “in the interest of justice.”

Jorge Sisco Aguilar, 28, has already served more than half of a 70-month term at Leavenworth federal penitentiary in Kansas on a charge of being an illegal immigrant in possession of a weapon.

He was convicted in 1997 after a two-day federal trial in which Rampart anti-gang officers Paul Harper and Mark Wilbur testified that they saw him toss away a handgun during a chase through the hallways of a hotel.

Sisco insisted that he was unarmed and that the officers were lying, but the jury voted to convict him after deliberating 45 minutes.

Last week, Harper was charged by the district attorney’s office with perjury in another alleged gun-planting case. Wilbur has not been charged, but is among several dozen Rampart officers who allegedly witnessed police misconduct and failed to report it.

Citing the latest allegations against the two LAPD officers, deputy federal public defender Michael J. Proctor filed a motion seeking a new trial for Sisco.

The U.S. attorney’s office responded Monday, saying it would not oppose the motion. And it went further, disclosing that it intends to ask Chief U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. to dismiss the entire case against Sisco.

“While I am exhilarated that the government now agrees with what my client has said all along--that he was wrongfully framed--I am very sad that Mr. Sisco has had to serve three hard years in prison because the U.S. attorney’s office chose to prosecute him in the first place,” the public defender said.

Proctor said the prosecutor who handled the case ignored glaring inconsistencies in Harper’s and Wilbur’s accounts about their run-in with Sisco, whom they suspected of being a gang member. “And at trial,” Proctor added, “the prosecutor aggressively defended the credibility of the officers.”

Judge Hatter, who presided at the original trial, is scheduled to take up the matter at a hearing on May 15.

Proctor said he has asked the U.S. attorney’s office for help in getting Sisco moved as quickly as possible from Leavenworth to the federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles.

Even if the case against him is dismissed, Sisco faces an uncertain future in the United States. Because of a prior felony conviction, he could face deportation to Mexico. According to Proctor, Sisco was brought to this country by his parents while a child.

He said Sisco’s previous conviction followed an arrest by other Rampart officers.

“The circumstances of that arrest is something we’ll be investigating as well,” he said.

In the meantime, he said, he hopes Sisco will be given a green card so he can find work after his release.