[Ppnews] Alex Sanchez denied bail

[Political Prisoner News]

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.
A website is being launched this week so people can keep updated 
about Alex and the fight for his freedom:
<http://www.wearealex.com>www.wearealex.com


Alex Sanchez Denied Bail
Prosecution Case Decried as "Weak"
By Tom Hayden
For The Nation

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

    * 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.]
    * 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.
    * That a poem by Sanchez was found in papers taken by police 
during a house raid several years ago.
    * 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.
    * 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.

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.

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.

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.]

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.

A movement to demand bail and a fair trial for Alex Sanchez was 
announced immediately after the bail denial, with the website 
www.wearealex.com. 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. #

Tom Hayden is a former state senator and author of Street Wars [Verso, 2005]






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