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<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2 color="#0000FF">We received news
that Alex Sanchez was denied bail yesterday. Alex is our comrade,
executive director of Homies Unidos, and co-founder of All of Us or None.
He was arrested in a federal racketeering conspiracy raid in Los Angeles
last week. Alex has been a leader of gang truce efforts in Los Angeles
for over ten years. All of Us or None will be working with Homies Unidos
and Alex's friends and family across the nation to win his release on
bail.<br>
A website is being launched this week so people can keep updated about
Alex and the fight for his freedom:<br>
<a href="http://www.wearealex.com">www.wearealex.com</a><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=5><b>Alex Sanchez Denied Bail<br>
Prosecution Case Decried as “Weak”<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=3>By Tom Hayden<br>
For The Nation<br><br>
</b>LOS ANGELES. A federal magistrate today denied Alex Sanchez bail in
his gang conspiracy trial as expected, but the prosecution entered a
surprisingly “weak” case according to defense counsel. <br><br>
If the bail denial is endorsed by federal judge Manual Real, an appeal to
the US Ninth Circuit Court could take months, keeping Sanchez in federal
isolation. His defenders argue that bail denial is a violation of his
equal opportunity to participate in his own defense, tipping the scales
of justice against the indigent defendant, former gang member and
decade-long leader of Homies Unidos, a gang prevention organization
highly regarded in juvenile justice circles. <br><br>
Sanchez appeared in court today chained and shackled, dressed in a white
prison uniform. He made brief eye contact with his family and supporters,
tapping his heart in a gesture of love and strength. He remained quiet
through the proceeding. <br><br>
In arguing that Sanchez was a danger to the community and a flight risk,
the prosecution case revealed the core of its conspiracy case for the
first time since Sanchez was arrested at home at 6 a.m last
Wednesday.<br><br>
In the eye of this observer, who has personally experienced and covered
many past conspiracy cases, the prosecution’s narrative seemed weaker
than others brought during the police and FBI’s long wars against crime,
the Left, revolutionaries, anti-war activists and, more lately
narco-terrorists and violent gangs. As Father Gregory Boyle argues, the
problem is not so much a police conspiracy as a deep ignorance and
cultural bias in the ranks of prosecutors and law enforcement. Both a
conspiratorial mindset and ignorance seemed on display today, leading
Sanchez’ attorney Kerry Bensinger to call the government case “weak” and
“laughable.” A notably professional attorney who refuses to argue the
case in the media, Bensinger reddened and shook his head at several
points during the proceeding. <br><br>
As evidence that Sanchez leads a “double life” as community healer by day
and secret member of a hierarchical racketeering organization [mara
salvatrucha] by night, the prosecutors offered the following evidence:
<br><br>
<ul>
<li>that Sanchez claims to support gang tattoo removal as a path out of
the gang life, but has a gang tattoo across his chest. In fact, laser
tattoo removal programs, which are painful, lengthy and expensive, are
offered only for the hands, wrists, neck or other areas which are
barriers to training and employment programs. Fr. Boyle credits Sanchez
will helping 250 young people undergo tattoo removal. Sanchez openly
admits he was a tattooed member of MS in the 1980s and early 1990s. [As a
state senator, I authorized $2 million for tattoo removal programs.]
<li>that Sanchez has a long criminal record. But defense counsel noted
that several of Sanchez’s previous convictions have been struck down, and
that those which remain are two offenses dated in 1991. Subsequently,
Sanchez has not only been exonerated of past offenses in LA Superior
Court, but granted political asylum by an immigration judge during the
Rampart police scandal in 2002.
<li>That a poem by Sanchez was found in papers taken by police during a
house raid several years ago.
<li>That Sanchez appeared in a 2000 photo taken at a gang peace
conference in San Francisco, smiling with an associate and posing with
gang signs. Attorney Bensinger noted that millions of young people,
including his own kids, sometimes throw gang signs without such behavior
being criminal.
<li>That several weeks ago, Sanchez and several young men were talking
and drinking after a sporting event, when police rolled up and took notes
on field identification cards. There were no charges made.
</ul><br>
On the most sensational charge of conspiracy-to-murder, the prosecution
introduced an LAPD underground officer who wiretapped Sanchez, among
others, without the required turning over of transcripts of the actual
wiretaps to the defense. Sanchez’ attorney objected to his inability to
cross-examine or obtain evidence through discovery. But the officer,
Frank Flores, was allowed to take the stand anyway, in support of charges
which have yet to be examined. The prosecution argued that the tapes of
multiple phone calls around May 5-6, 2006, will reveal arguments,
tensions and threats among several gang members, including Sanchez and
Walter Lacinos, aka “Cameron”. Sanchez, according to the still-unreleased
tape, is quoted as saying “we go to war”, without any further context or
quotation. Lacinos was killed the following week in El Salvador by an
unnamed MS member, according to the prosecution account. <br><br>
A sentence such as “we go to war”, without context, could be prophecy,
prediction or warning, but is hardly sustainable evidence of ordering a
gang killing. The case itself may open up the shadowy world of LAPD
collusion with Salvadoran police and the unsolved murders of numerous
Homies Unidos members deported back to El Salvador in the past decade.
<br><br>
Many might ask why Sanchez isn’t simply tried for accessory to murder in
the proper state or local court. The plain reason is that the evidence
would be insufficient. Enter the RICO racketeering conspiracy laws, named
after the gangster named “Rico” in an Edward G. Robinson film, which make
guilt-by-association the basis of responsibility for concrete “overt”
acts. [For example, during the 1969 Chicago conspiracy trial, eight
defendants were accused of conspiring to cross interstate lines and
carrying “overt acts” in furtherance of said conspiracy. It was not
necessary that the eight knew each other. I was charged with the overt
act of letting air out of a police car’s tires. Bobby Seale’s overt act
was giving a speech in broad daylight. Jerry Rubin, if I recall, was
charged with throwing a sweater at a police officer.] <br><br>
Alex Sanchez will have to show that he was not an active participant in
any crime and that his presence on wiretapped conversations was not
evidence of murderous intent, and/or that multiple dangers precluded him
from just hanging up. It is possible that the tapes themselves will
unravel into garbled discussions proving nothing resembling a conspiracy.
But the government will refuse to release the tapes for as many months as
possible, while Sanchez remains locked away. In the end, the conspiracy
may prove to be the LAPD and FBI elements who continue to blame Sanchez
for causing them embarrassment in the Rampart scandal a decade ago, when
they tried to imprison and deport him. <br><br>
A movement to demand bail and a fair trial for Alex Sanchez was announced
immediately after the bail denial, with the website
<a href="http://www.wearealex.com/" eudora="autourl">www.wearealex.com</a>
. Led by Homies Unidos activists, the defense committee released over one
hundred letters from Salvadoran community leaders, gang prevention groups
from across the country, and an array of clergy including Father Boyle,
Rabbi Allen Freehling, Rabbi Steve Jacobs, and Minister Tony Muhammed of
the Nation of Islam, who attended the bail proceeding. #<br><br>
<i>Tom Hayden is a former state senator and author of Street Wars [Verso,
2005]<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
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