Man shot by agents pleads guilty to drug smuggling

By Daniel Borunda / El Paso Times

Article Launched: 04/18/2008 12:00:00 AM MDT

A man from Juárez at the center of a national controversy in the conviction and imprisonment of two former U.S. Border Patrol agents pleaded guilty to drug smuggling on Thursday in U.S. District Court in El Paso.

Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, 27, pleaded guilty to smuggling more than 100 kilos of marijuana in 2005.

Aldrete faces a minimum mandatory sentence of five years and up to 40 years in prison and is scheduled for sentencing on July 16.

Former agents Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos are serving prison terms for shooting Aldrete from behind while he was running back to Mexico during a failed smuggling run near Fabens in February 2005.

Ramos and Compean were convicted of violating Aldrete's civil rights and of tampering with evidence for not reporting the shooting and because Compean picked up his shell casings. Their cases are on appeal.

"We waited for this time. We knew it would come. It's another step (in proving) my husband's innocence," Monica Ramos, the wife of Ignacio Ramos, said when she left the courthouse.

U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, who has been criticized for the prosecution of Ramos and Compean, said in a news release that Aldrete was prosecuted because there was evidence.