Judge Voids Case of Man Not Warned of Deportation

Over the objections of a county prosecutor, a judge on Tuesday tossed out the felony conviction of reformed gang member Alex Sanchez on the grounds that he was never told he would face deportation if he agreed to plead guilty.

Sanchez’s case became something of a cause celebre because critics say it was an example of the Los Angeles Police Department Rampart Division’s use of deportation to eliminate troublesome witnesses. Sanchez planned to testify on behalf of a teenager arrested by Rampart officers.

In setting aside Sanchez’s decade-old auto theft conviction, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler said, “He was not advised in the statutory language that is required . . . that he would be excluded from the United States of America.”

As a result of the conviction, and a subsequent parole violation for possessing a firearm, Sanchez was deported in 1994 to his homeland, El Salvador. He returned illegally a year later.

Sanchez’s supporters have said he was harassed by officers from the Rampart Division for his work as director of an anti-gang program called Homies Unidos. The arresting officers, his backers have insisted, violated a city policy prohibiting police from inquiring about a person’s immigration status.

The LAPD never disputed that it arrested Sanchez and turned him over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Making an arrest specifically for deportation purposes violates departmental policy on cooperation with the INS.

But federal authorities said they were blindsided by the arrest and mystified by a subsequent LAPD news release that said the INS had been “actively looking” for Sanchez.

Sanchez was arrested Jan. 21 by Officer Jesus Amezcua of the Rampart Division’s anti-gang CRASH unit. The officer had been investigating the case of a 15-year-old accused of a fatal double shooting, Sanchez and his lawyer say. They allege that the LAPD tried to arrange Sanchez’s deportation because his testimony could clear the youth of murder charges.

Sanchez and others said Jose Rodriguez, the teenager accused of murder, was at a Homies Unidos meeting at the time the shooting took place in August.

Sanchez’s attorney, Mark Geragos, said Fidler’s decision could lead to his client’s release from custody as early as next week.

Now, Geragos said, “we stand a real chance of winning him legal status. Vacating the conviction dramatically alters the landscape of the immigration proceedings.”

Sanchez is seeking a special visa for government informants, Geragos said.