Last month, Moriarty and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced they were suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department for blocking state investigators from accessing evidence in the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and the wounding of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. All three were shot by federal immigration agents in January.
Moriarty said her office was able to bring charges against Morgan but not in the shooting cases because the State Patrol received no pushback and was able to thoroughly investigate the traffic incident, including securing an interview with Morgan himself.
“This case followed the typical investigation and submission process for cases coming to our office,” Moriarty said of the Morgan investigation. “Virtually none of the obstacles around evidence collection that exist for the January shootings exist in this case.”
The charges come days after Ramsey County Attorney John Choi announced two active investigations into the conduct of federal immigration agents during the surge, including one incident where ICE agents dragged 56-year-old ChongLy Scott Thao, a Hmong American man, out of his home and into the freezing cold in shorts and flip flops.
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office is investigating 17 other incidents of alleged unlawful behavior by federal agents during the surge, and are asking for the public to submit information via an online portal dubbed the Transparency and Accountability Project (TAP).
Moriarty said Morgan could ask that the case be moved from state court to federal court and could invoke the Supremacy clause in his defense, which can protect federal officers from state prosecutions for actions taken within the scope of their official duties. But if he were to pursue that route, she said, the burden would be on him to prove that his conduct was part of the performance of his duties, and that her office would litigate the case in federal court.
“There is no such thing as absolute immunity for federal agents who violate the law in the state of Minnesota or any other state,” she said.
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