🚀 go-pugleaf

Eighteen months after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was 
murdered in Arizona by Mexican bandits using guns purchased 
through a U.S. government program called Fast and Furious, we 
still don�t know who within the Department of Justice knew about 
the program, much less who authorized it.

Certainly there has been no serious talk about prosecuting any 
of the people responsible for assisting in the illegal sales of 
over 2,000 guns to Mexican arms traffickers � guns that were 
subsequently involved in the murders of BPA Terry and 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata, as well 
as possibly hundreds of Mexican citizens.

But while that investigation has dragged on, with Attorney 
General Eric Holder denying knowledge of the program, denying 
knowledge of who was involved and denying congressional 
investigators access to tens of thousands of documents that 
might answer those questions, New Mexico gun dealer Rick Reese 
and his two sons Ryin and Remington have sat rotting in separate 
detention centers, jails and prisons around the state accused of 
a similar crime involving some 30 guns.

The Reese family, including Rick�s wife Terri, ran a gun shop in 
Deming, N.M., and was arrested in late August of 2011 on charges 
of knowingly selling guns to Mexican smugglers and various other 
related charges.

After spending 6 months in jail, Terri Reese was finally granted 
bail in March of this year, but Rick and the boys have been 
repeatedly denied bail on the pretext that they are flight risks 
or might try to engage in a Ruby Ridge-type standoff.

The rationale for denying the Reeses� constitutional rights is 
that Rick knows some people in Mexico, his home has a well and 
solar power and there were guns and ammunition in their homes 
and businesses when they were arrested. That�s right: Guns and 
ammo in the home and business of a federally licensed firearms 
dealer (all of which were seized a year ago and have never been 
returned) is being offered as evidence that they can�t be 
trusted � and a judge bought it.

Well, there�s also the fact that Rick and Terri were involved 
with a local tea-party group. That�s probably reason enough 
right there.

The Reeses are scheduled to finally get their day in court in 
late July, almost a full year after they were arrested and 
incarcerated. The first of several pre-trial motion hearings was 
held last week in which the judge heard arguments as to whether 
the charge of criminal conspiracy should be dropped. The 
prosecution contends that the Reese family members were all in 
cahoots in a conspiracy to sell guns to illegal buyers, falsify 
purchase paperwork, smuggle guns to Mexico and launder the 
illegal proceeds. The defense contends that the family operated 
a business buying and selling firearms, ammunition and 
accessories, and that they made every effort to ensure that 
every sale they made was legal and properly documented.

During this first hearing, we learned several things about the 
prosecution�s case. For instance, we learned that prosecutors 
acknowledge that every gun the Reeses sold was properly logged 
into and out of their store inventory, and that FBI background 
checks were conducted, and approvals received, for each 
purchaser. They also agree that all taxes were paid and no money 
was exchanged �under the table,� nor did any of the family 
members receive compensation above their normal company paycheck.

We learned that Rick Reese also employed retired and off-duty 
law enforcement officers as part-time help in the shop, and that 
a substantial portion of the company�s business came from law 
enforcement officers and agencies.

We learned that prosecutors consider three family members 
standing close to each other and quietly talking to be evidence 
of conspiracy and that the lead investigator in the case has a 
very low opinion of fellow law enforcement officers. When asked 
if he considered the fact that the Reeses employed LEOs in the 
shop to be contraindicative of a criminal conspiracy, he replied 
that he did not because �a lot of them [cops and former cops] 
are dirty.�

Probably the most important fact we learned at this hearing was 
that the entire investigation was instigated based on a tip that 
a woman named Penny Torres was making suspicious purchases of 
guns and ammunition, and might be illegally buying for someone 
else. That tip led to Torres� arrest and her subsequent grand 
jury testimony against the Reese family and another gun shop 
where she had made some purchases. The presumption is that her 
cooperation garnered her leniency in the charges and sentence 
she was facing for her criminal activity.

What is most significant about the arrest of Penny Torres is 
that the original tip identifying her as a potential �straw 
buyer� came from Terri Reese.

Torres had claimed that her purchases were in preparation for a 
large family reunion at an area ranch where her relatives wanted 
to do a lot of shooting. At some point after the sales, Terri 
Reese became suspicious of Torres� story and contacted a friend 
in the Luna County Sheriff�s office, who acted as the shop�s go-
to guy in law enforcement. He assured Terri that he would make a 
report to ATF and get back to her.

Torres testimony against the Reese family led to a months-long 
sting operation conducted against the Reeses by a federal agency 
called Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI. That 
investigation involved a confidential informant named Roman, who 
was trying to earn a reduced sentence for drug and human 
smuggling. His job was to make purchases of firearms and 
ammunition from the Reeses while dropping hints that his intent 
was to illegally take the guns to Mexico. The trick was to drop 
those hints in such a way that they wouldn�t alarm the Reeses, 
but that someone listening to a recording of the tape and 
reading a transcript would conclude that the Reeses knew, or 
should have known, his intentions.

Roman, by the way, speaks only broken English, and his 
conversations with the Reeses included a lot of Spanish, a 
language that no one in the Reese family speaks, but which has 
been transcribed for the court in English.

Who would believe that a gun dealer�s report of a suspicious 
purchaser would lead to a federal investigation of the dealer 
herself, culminating in a raid with armored vehicles, 
helicopters and heavily armed officers and agents from multiple 
jurisdictions?

Or that a few firearms and ammunition sales in a high-volume gun 
store, including the sales that Terri Reese had reported as 
suspicious, would result in confiscation of virtually everything 
the family had accumulated over a 25-year marriage and 17 years 
in business � bank accounts, gun and coin collections, store 
inventory, vehicles, real estate, just about everything the 
family had?

Or that the same Justice Department that had instructed dealers 
to sell over 2,000 guns to known straw buyers for Mexican drug 
cartels while making no attempt to track or interdict them � 
with a few arrests and minor charges against the straw 
purchasers, but no charges against the ATF and DOJ employees who 
masterminded the criminal operation � would effectively destroy 
a family for not being quite diligent enough in their efforts to 
screen their customers?

It is worth noting that as HSI progressed in their investigation 
against the Reese family, they were briefing and receiving 
guidance from Phoenix ATF Bureau Chief Bill Newell � the man 
responsible for directly overseeing Operation Fast and Furious.

For the Reese family, who have already served 10 months behind 
bars and have had all of their worldly possessions taken from 
them, the July trial is an opportunity to prove their innocence 
and try to reassemble what�s left of their lives.

For the prosecution, it is imperative that they prove that the 
Reeses were intentionally engaging in the criminal activity they 
have already been being punished for. Failure to get a 
conviction would leave egg on the face of a relatively new 
federal law enforcement agency trying to establish itself, and 
would mean that the various agencies involved wouldn�t get to 
divvy up the spoils already pillaged.

Once again though, we see a case where those inside the 
government and law enforcement are handled with kid gloves and 
given the benefit of every doubt, while those outside of 
government and law enforcement are presumed guilty until they 
can prove their innocence � even after the government has taken 
away the resources they need to make their case.

If you would like to help the Reese family in their struggle, a 
defense fund has been set up at:

REESE DEFENSE FUND
ATTENTION Patricia Arias
First Savings Bank
520 South Gold
Deming, NM 88030


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