Copyright © 2014 Albuquerque Journal
A federal appeals court has ruled that Deming gun store owners Rick Reese, his wife, Terri, and son Ryin are not entitled to new trials and sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Robert Brack for further proceedings. The Reeses were convicted in 2012 of aiding straw purchases of firearms from their store.
Brack ruled the three were entitled to new trials because federal prosecutors failed to inform them that a government witness was under FBI investigation.
A three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver found that “there is not a reasonable probability that the trial’s outcome would have been different had the government disclosed the investigation” of the witness.
Absent further appeal, the case returns to the district court for sentencing. Rick, Terri and Ryin Reese each face a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Their sentencing hearings have yet to be scheduled.
The Reeses can seek a review by all the judges from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals or can file writ of certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court.
The information, which was not disclosed to the court until four months after the trial ended last summer, concerned the fact that the FBI, dating to 2003, had investigated the witness, Luna County sheriff’s investigator Alan Batts.
Subjects of the Batts investigation included allegations of theft of money from a drug dealer, working with Mexican drug traffickers and assisting with alien smuggling. No charges have ever been filed against him.
Acting U.S. Attorney Steven C. Yarbrough said, “The United States takes its obligation to disclose material information favorable to a criminal defendant very seriously. The 10th Circuit’s conclusion that my office did not violate its disclosure obligations during its prosecution of this case is, therefore, a very important one.”
Rick Reese’s attorney, Cori A. Harbour-Valdez, of El Paso, said in an email that she doesn’t comment on pending cases.
The appeals court found that Batts was a relatively minor witness in the trial against the Reese family.
The government’s trial case relied on hours of secretly recorded video of weapons buys made by federal undercover agents and a government informant who frequently dropped hints the weapons were headed to a Mexican drug-trafficking gang.
Defense attorneys argued that the Reeses were simply engaged in legal, properly recorded sales and had no idea the weapons were supposed to go to Mexico.
After a trial that ended in July, Brack dismissed two money-laundering charges, and a jury acquitted the Reeses of 24 of the remaining 28 charges. Remington Reese was found not guilty, but Rick and Terri Reese were convicted of one charge, and Ryin of two charges, of making false statements on firearms forms. Customers must fill out the forms attesting they are the true buyers of the weapons and not middlemen, or so-called straw buyers.
The appeals court found that there was more than enough evidence without Batts’ testimony for the jury to convict the Reese family on those counts on which they were found guilty.
