REESE CASE: Defense Team Defends Judge Brack’s Order

In August 2011, Rick, Terri, Ryin and Remington Reese were charged with 32 counts relating to gun smuggling, conspiracy, money laundering and falsifying information on Form 4473. Nearly a year later, Remington was found not guilty of all charges. Rick and Terri Reese were convicted of one count each, and their son Ryin was convicted of two counts of Form 4473 violations. The issue relating to the counts of conviction boiled down to the Reeses should have known the undercover government agents who filled out Form 4473, were acting as straw purchasers for Mexican cartel member Jose Roman. The government alleges the Reeses knew Jose Roman was a Mexican cartel gun and drug smuggler – something the Reeses emphatically deny – and therefore would have known the agents were acting as straw purchasers. (Form 4473 is used to run the FBI background checks conducted before a gun is purchased from a FFL gun dealer. The agents used phoney identification, which passed the background checks.) In November of 2012, information the government withheld from the defense before and during trial was given to the trial judge, Robert C. Brack. The government did not want the judge to share this information with the defense team. Judge Brack disagreed and by the end of January two hearings had been held in the matter. It turned out that Deputy Sheriff Alan Batts, the law enforcement officer Terri Reese had called to report a suspicious weapons buyer, had himself been under investigation for a number of years for alleged corruption. As a result of the testimony of a supervisor in the Las Cruces U.S. Attorney’s Office, the testimony of two FBI agents, and testimony from Alan Batts, Judge Brack ordered a new trial for Rick, Terri and Ryin. The government immediately filed an appeal. The government does not want the Reeses to have a new trial. On November 20, 2013 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver, Colorado heard the government’s arguments against a new trial, and the Reese attorney’s argument in support of affirming Judge Brack’s decision granting a new trial...more