ICE Officer Charged with Lying to Investigators in Shooting Incident

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors have charged a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer with lying to investigators about the events leading up to the shooting of a Venezuelan man during an immigration operation in Minneapolis earlier this year, according to a source familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The officer, Christian Castro, is accused of shooting Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg in January and has been charged with making false statements to federal investigators. This federal charge follows Castro's release from jail last week after Texas Governor Greg Abbott declined to sign an extradition warrant to transfer him to Minnesota, where he faces separate charges of assault and false reporting related to the same incident. Initially, federal authorities accused Sosa-Celis and another man of assaulting an officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel during the encounter. However, federal prosecutors dropped the charges against the men after video evidence suggested that the officers may have provided false accounts of the incident, prompting an investigation. Earlier this week, a federal prosecutor involved in the case informed lawyers for Sosa-Celis and other victims that Justice Department officials had blocked efforts to pursue more serious civil rights charges against Castro for the shooting, as reported by ProPublica. However, the source familiar with the investigation contested this characterization, indicating that the investigation is ongoing and that no final decision has been made regarding potential additional charges. The prosecutor in question was fired on Thursday and is now under investigation for alleged obstruction of a grand jury probe. An automatic email response from the prosecutor's office indicated that he is currently on leave, and other attempts to contact him were unsuccessful.