![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/george-alan-kelly-mugshot-3160437120-300x200.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
You might recall\u00a0 George Allen Kelly, the Nogales-area Arizona border rancher who was on trial for killing an illegal border crosser on his land. He was accused of shooting an “unarmed man” after he fired warning shots to deter what he claimed were a band of armed men on his land. The body was found January 30 last year, although the bullet that killed the illegal was not found. The prosecutor’s office says he will not be retried.<\/p>\n
\nLast Monday, a judge declared a mistrial in the case after jurors were unable to reach consensus about whether to charge Kelly with second-degree murder and aggravated assault. He had pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n
Kelly was accused of shooting his AK-47 from a far distance at a group of migrants who were headed back across the border into Mexico. Prosecutors said Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, 48, a migrant who lived just across the border in Nogales, Mexico, and was looking for work, was fatally struck. Law enforcement officials were never able to recover the bullet, and Kelly\u2019s lawyers tried to make the point that another person may have shot him. No other weapon was discovered in the area.\u00a0 ABC News<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Gotta be the FIRST illegal to head back home if he didn’t get work.<\/p>\n
Kelly’s defense team maintains his innocence\u00a0 and says the prosecution was politically motivated. Briefly, Kelly and his wife say they saw armed men about 100 feet from their house, and that he fired warning shots from about 100 yards away.\u00a0 (Mr. Cuen-Buitema was killed by a single round to the chest.) Kelly supposed fired “8 or 9 AK rounds”. (Now, we know that either predominant AK round has a relatively poor trajectory for long ranges, but 100 yards is not long range – it’s a ZERO range. If he fired that many rounds AT the group there should be more casualties, tight?) The body was not discovered until hours later.<\/p>\n
The defense said that seven jurors wanted to acquit Kelly, but one “lone holdout” was unwavering in wanting to convict the elderly rancher despite the evidence and testimony.<\/p>\n
Dr. Ron Martinelli, a criminologist working pro bono for Kelly’s defense team, accused Santa Cruz County Attorney George Silva and Sheriff David Hathaway of “extreme confirmation bias” in their handling of the case, which centered on the death of Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, a Mexican national found fatally shot on Jan. 30, 2023, after Kelly called Border Patrol for help from his 170-acre cattle ranch outside Nogales, Arizona. Fox News<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Here’s an interesting accusation:<\/p>\n
The defense believes that the people contacted by the Santa Cruz County Sheriff\u2019s Office to conduct their investigation into Kelly\u2019s case are related or connected to the Sinaloa Cartel, Martinelli said.\u00a0 “The Sinaloa Cartel and Manos Malas, an organized crime ring which is in league with Sinaloa, do not allow independent drug smugglers. So you have to be associated with the cartel,” Martinelli said. “When they meet with him, that was actually facilitated by another convicted, twice convicted felon \u2014 one of his last convictions that he did prison time for was bringing guns across the border.” \u00a0Fox News II<\/a><\/p>\n
“And this trial, we believe, cost the citizens of Santa Cruz County over $1 million and thousands of man-hours in this case, and they can’t fix it,” he said. “Santa Cruz County is the most impoverished county in Arizona.\u00a0 Fox News<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
If you read some of the sheriff’s statements ripping neighboring county sheriffs who cooperate with the Border Patrol, this all would not surprise you. By the way, Hathaway, County Attorney DaSilva, and Michael Jette, a contract prosecutor, all blew off the crucial Monday session when the judge declared a mistrial. Wonder what they had to do that was more important than the highest profile case in the county?<\/p>\n
Interesting articles, and they have far more info than space allows here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"