Federal prosecutors charge ICE officer with lying to investigators in the shooting of Venezuelan immigrant

An ICE officer is facing federal charges for allegedly lying to federal investigators about the shooting of a Venezuelan immigrant during immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis earlier this year.

A federal grand jury on Wednesday returned an indictment charging the officer, Christian Castro, with making false statements to the FBI about the Jan. 14 shooting that left Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis with a gunshot wound in his leg, a source familiar with the investigation told NBC News.

A separate investigation into whether Castro should face a more serious civil rights charge in the shooting is ongoing, the source added.

The Associated Press first reported on Castro’s latest federal charges.

The federal charges come a week after Castro was released from jail in Texas despite an extradition warrant from Minnesota prosecutors seeking his transfer. He’s facing state charges in Minnesota accusing him of assault and false reporting of a crime related to the same shooting.

Federal authorities had initially accused Sosa-Celis and another man of beating an immigration officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel in a confrontation that preceded the shooting, but federal prosecutors dropped the charges they filed against the men after video evidence showed the ICE officers may have lied about the encounter.

Castro was arrested in May in the Minnesota case. He was held in custody in Brownsville, Texas, until his release last week after a judge and Gov. Greg Abbott refused to sign his extradition warrant — citing fraud investigations involving social services programs in Minnesota, which the Trump administration used to justify his immigration crackdown there.

Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott’s press secretary, told NBC News that “state law enforcement stands ready and willing to assist federal partners in facilitating Mr. Castro’s arrest if needed.”

Mahaleris added that “details of any federal indictment are best addressed to the U.S. Department of Justice.”

The Department of Homeland Security and the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office referred any queries to the DOJ.

An attorney for Castro did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As news broke of Castro’s latest indictment, a federal prosecutor working on the case against Castro was fired, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Evans had told lawyers for Sosa-Celis that DOJ officials have blocked efforts to bring the more serious civil rights charge against Castro, ProPublica reported on Wednesday.

Evans did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and his DOJ email address returned an automated reply saying he was on leave.