Text messages and a moved SUV: How the government’s case against a Chicago woman shot by a Border Patrol agent fell apart
By Dalia Faheid, Omar Jimenez, CNN
(CNN) — Even with a federal indictment hanging over her, claiming she had been a threat to law enforcement, Marimar Martinez was confident she could eventually prove her innocence.
“I know the truth,” Martinez told CNN Friday in an exclusive interview. “I know what really happened that day.”
After an extraordinary reversal by federal prosecutors in one of the most high-profile cases connected to Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, a judge dismissed charges Thursday against Martinez, a United States citizen who was accused of ramming the vehicle of a Customs and Border Protection agent in Chicago before he shot her several times.
The ruling from US District Judge Georgia Alexakis came after she repeatedly raised concerns about the handling of the investigation, including the revelation the vehicle of the Border Patrol agent who shot Martinez was moved 1,000 miles away after the incident and text messages showing the agent apparently bragging about the shooting.
Martinez had been accused of “aggressively and erratically” pursuing CBP agent Charles Exum and hitting his car on October 4 as protests against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown took place in the city. The charging complaint says Exum then stepped out of his vehicle and fired his weapon five times at Martinez – shots the Department of Homeland Security called “defensive.” Martinez had pleaded not guilty to a federal charge of assaulting, resisting or impeding federal officers.
Inside the courtroom, the judge noted the government’s case included omissions that caused her to tread carefully as Martinez’s defense attorney alleged it was actually the agent who sideswiped Martinez. Outside the courtroom, the high-profile case garnered public scrutiny.
Defense attorney Christopher Parente – himself a former federal prosecutor – believes a rush by the Trump administration to have a meme-ready example of dangerous protest activity forced the US Attorney’s Office to push a weak case too far.
“She never would have been charged under the old system because they would have found out right away that this case is garbage,” Parente told CNN.
The judge’s decision came hours after federal prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the charges against both Martinez and her co-defendant, Anthony Ruiz.
The US Attorney’s Office is “constantly evaluating new facts and information relating to cases and investigations arising out of Operation Midway Blitz,” spokesperson Joseph Fitzpatrick said.
Parente commended the Trump-appointed US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Andrew Boutros, for not moving forward with the case despite what was likely enormous pressure.
“That took incredible guts,” Parente said.
Legal experts told CNN the move was likely the result of a series of questionable claims from the federal government in court and a calculation over whether it can be proven at trial that the gunshots were justified.
“Ultimately, there was a determination when everything was evaluated that there were serious questions about the officers’ narratives,” CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson said.
Here’s what we know about the investigation and how experts say the government’s case fell apart:
Apparent bragging text messages provide insight
Text messages displayed in court earlier this month were likely key in the prosecution’s decision to move to dismiss charges, experts said.
Exum appeared to brag to fellow agents about his marksmanship after he repeatedly shot Martinez following a collision between their vehicles, the messages revealed.
Boasting about the shots would look bad to a jury, Jackson said. Had the case moved forward, the government would have needed to justify every shot he took and prove there was immediate danger and proportionate force.
Exum sent an article from The Guardian on October 7 to a group of other agents, which quoted Parente saying Martinez had “seven holes in her body from five shots from this agent.”
“Read it. 5 shots, 7 holes,” Exum said in the next text.
Parente pointed to the messages as an indication Exum understood the high public scrutiny of the case.
When Parente pressed him in court on what he meant, Exum responded he was a firearms instructor. He said, “I take pride in my shooting skills.”
Another message to the group read, “I have a MOF amendment to add to my story. I fired 5 rounds, and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.”
Exum explained to the judge MOF is a “Miserable Old F**ker” who is always trying to one up someone wherever possible. It’s unclear what exactly he was responding to because the text conversations were redacted when presented to the court.
When asked to explain the text, Exum said, “That means illegal actions have legal consequences.”
Exum defended his use of force against Martinez, saying his life was at risk and “I did what I had to do.”
Parente told CNN he believes most federal agents would be embarrassed to see that kind of bragging about a shooting.
“I have never come across an agent like that,” Parente said. “Those people go to work, and they try to do the right thing. They do not want to shoot people ever.”
CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig said the texts “reflect poorly on the agent,” who would be a key witness at trial. Prosecutors also have to consider the fairness of the case. “Here you have a woman who was shot multiple times, and there were serious questions of whether she had done anything wrong whatsoever,” he said.
If the case had moved forward, it likely would have been unsuccessful, Jackson said. Martinez’s attorney agrees.
“There was no way we were going to lose this trial on the evidence,” Parente told CNN.
Key evidence was moved 1,000 miles away
Hearings in the case included discussion on what the government did with Exum’s car following the collision. The way that piece of key evidence was handled was one of the significant problems with the government’s case, experts said.
Martinez’s defense attorney sought to prove his claim the government potentially destroyed evidence when it released Exum’s damaged vehicle and allowed the agent to drive it more than 1,000 miles to his home state of Maine, where the car may have had repairs.
“That means that the government did not properly handle and maintain evidence. That’s a major problem in the presentation of the case,” Honig said. It needed to be preserved in the exact same condition it was in after the collision, he explained.
Jackson said it was a major misstep for the federal government that undermined their credibility. In every other case he’s seen where a car was involved in a shooting, the car is taken to be analyzed by law enforcement and experts reconstruct the collision.
“Any evaluation of the trajectory of the damage would go to show what happened. Instead, you take the car away and destroy evidence,” Jackson said.
Judge Alexakis expressed skepticism over why Martinez’s car had been kept in Chicago as evidence while the Border Patrol agent’s car was released and allowed to travel normally. “What gives me great pause is the fact the cars have been treated differently,” Alexakis said.
Government attorneys defended federal agents’ decisions, saying the FBI had preserved any evidence they believed was relevant before releasing the car back onto the street.
But Alexakis said the government clearly believed the vehicle could be exculpatory evidence; otherwise, it would not have gone through the trouble to preserve records on the car.
Alexakis ordered the government last month to return the SUV to Chicago.
Judge questioned government’s narrative
Of more than two dozen people arrested for impeding or assaulting federal officers or other protest-related offenses amid demonstrations over the federal immigration crackdown in the Chicago area, none have gone to trial and charges have been dropped against at least nine of them, The Associated Press reported. Judges have expressed skepticism over the strength of some cases.
In its initial press release, the Department of Homeland Security had referred to Martinez and her co-defendant as “domestic terrorists” who had “ambushed” the Border Patrol vehicle on Chicago streets. Martinez says she couldn’t believe the accusations she was facing.
“They were (saying) ‘domestic terrorist,’ that she had a semiautomatic. I was just like, that’s crazy,” Martinez told CNN.
In court, Alexakis noted discrepancies in the government’s case have caused her “to question the narrative being put forward.”
She pointed out the Justice Department had previously said in court the agent took the SUV back to Maine because it was his “personal vehicle,” then stated in a later court filing the car is part of an official Border Patrol fleet.
The judge also noted she had not previously been told a mechanic had worked on the car, and the government has given at least two different accounts of who approved the car’s removal to Maine.
She acknowledged the government version of events may turn out to be true, “but I can’t accept that possibility at this juncture,” she said.
“There have been serious questions raised about the truthfulness of the statements made by the Border Patrol agent who shot Ms. Martinez and …about the extent to which she could get a fair trial when the Department of Homeland Security was using her case to make inflammatory public claims about the level of resistance to Operation Midway Blitz,” Northwestern law professor Paul Gowder told CNN. “Dismissing the case was the right thing to do with that kind of cloud over it.”
When reached by CNN for comment on the judge dismissing charges against Martinez, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin on Thursday restated previous claims that Martinez was one of the drivers who rammed agents and referred questions on the charges to the Justice Department.
CNN has reached out to the DOJ for further comment.
Along with the physical scars that wrapped around Martinez from her arms to her legs, the mental trauma is another reminder of that painful day, she said.
“I’m a survivor,” Martinez said. “I don’t want to remember that day. You’re laying there at night and you’re just thinking about it, like, ‘what’s gonna happen?’ It’s really emotional to me.”
Martinez, who works as a teaching assistant, says she now wants to put the case behind her and get back to work.
“I’m just so excited to go back with my students, the parents. They were so supportive,” she told CNN.
Martinez says she will be happy to get her normal life back.
“People are like, ‘oh, you just want to be the victim,’” she said. “I’m not the victim. I’m actually a survivor from all of this injustice that’s going on.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
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CNN’s Bill Kirkos, Andy Rose, Stephen Samaniego, Nicquel Terry Ellis, Elizabeth Wolfe and Andi Babineau contributed to this report.
