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1 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURTFOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO

2

3 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ))

4 Plaintiff, ))

5 vs. NO: CR 11-2294 RB))

6 RICK REESE, ))

7 Defendant. )

8

9

10 HEARING ON APPEAL OF DETENTION

11Transcript of Proceedings before THE HONORABLE

12 ROBERT C. BRACK, United States District Judge, held in thecity of Las Cruces, Doa Ana County, New Mexico, commencing

13 on Friday, September 23, 2011, at 9:18 A.M. and concludingat 10:02 A.M.

14

15 Appearances of Counsel:

16 For the United States:

17 Assistant United States AttorneysNathan Lichvarcik, Esq.

18 Michael Nammar, Esq.

19 For the Defendant:

20 Court-appointed CounselJess R. Lilley, Esq.

21

22

(Proceedings recorded by machine shorthand and23 transcript produced by Computer-Aided Transcription.)Vanessa I. Alyce, RPR

24 Federal Official Court ReporterNM CCR #259

25

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT100 N. Church Street, Las Cruces, NM 88001

(575) 528-1430

Case 2:11-cr-02294-RB Document 104 Filed 02/07/12 Page 1 of 24

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1 (In Open Court at 9:18 A.M.)

2 THE COURT: United States of America versus Rick

3 Reese. Mr. Reese is present this morning, along with

4 Mr. Lilley. Mr. Lichvarcik and Mr. Nammar on behalf of the

5 government. We're here pursuant to the defendant's appeal

6 from Judge Wormuth's order of detention.

7 Mr. Lilley, I've read your appeal, Document 45,

8 as well as the government's response thereto. I've looked

9 over the minutes from the hearing in front of Judge Wormuth,

10 reviewed again the Indictment and the memos from Pretrial

11 and the Pretrial Services Report. I was given, yesterday

12 afternoon, a DVD that, given my other trial schedule, I

13 have -- I will confess I've not seen it. And I know that

14 was prepared for me by the government. I haven't seen it;

15 haven't had time. So I'll hear you.

16 MR. LILLEY: Judge, I'm not going to sit here and

17 rehash everything. Obviously, the court is up to speed on

18 what the issues are.

19 I first want to address flight. And what it

20 comes down to, Judge, is if this court were to release

21 Mr. Reese, would he leave his entire family and 30 years of

22 what he's taken to build that has been seized by government

23 and take off? And go where? We would submit that that's --

24 when you think about it that that's not something that is a

25 reasonable belief.


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1 So with all that I've put forth in my -- and all

2 the connections he has to the community, Judge, and all the

3 continued support he has in the community that to say he was

4 going to leave his family -- and really everything he owns

5 has been seized for 30 years that he's built in the Deming

6 area. And for him to just leave, it's not reasonable and,

7 therefore, flight has not been met by a preponderance of the

8 evidence.

9 THE COURT: And Counsel, I'm -- I wasn't clear,

10 in Mr. Rick Reese's case, why Judge Wormuth believed that he

11 was a flight risk, other than proximity to the border and

12 associations with people on the south side of the border.

13 You know that I've heard another case related to

14 this, his son's, the other day. And he was accused of --

15 there was a suggestion that he had sought out a Mexican

16 passport. That gave me pause.

17 I don't have that sort of trigger on the question

18 of -- if you'll forgive me for using that metaphor, I don't

19 have that trigger here on flight risk. Danger to the

20 community is where my focus is this morning, so I'd like for

21 you to --

22 MR. LILLEY: And that's what I'd like to address,

23 Judge.

24 Now, what the DVDs show you is -- essentially the

25 DVDs are of statements -- really, the statements that the


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1 government has set forth in their original memorandum and

2 again in their reply to my appeal. Those are the statements

3 made in the July 29th undercover recording.

4 What I -- what those -- what I would agree is

5 those statements do refer to -- Mexico comes up, and selling

6 rounds, and rounds being in Mexico. What does not come up,

7 Judge, in any of these things that they have cited, any of

8 these quotes they have cited and in those audio/videos is

9 that this informant is saying he's with the cartel.

10 Quote -- here's what you have -- and I know --

11 obviously, I submit and I agree and I acknowledge that there

12 is talk on those -- those quotes seem to be accurate. And

13 there's talk about things going into Mexico. But I think

14 when you look at danger, dangerousness is a huge issue, if

15 Mr. Reese knows or these quotes tend to indicate "I'm

16 selling to a cartel member. This cartel member is taking

17 them to go to Mexico to do bad things."

18 Here's, quote, what they didn't quote you

19 surrounding those quotes that -- on July 29th.

20 The person who is, I guess, the cooperating

21 source says he's going to use the ammunition to, quote,

22 protect himself. When they're talking about that, that's

23 when the quote came up with Mr. Reese that talks about "yes,

24 ammunition shooting crooked federales."

25 "Crooked federales." I don't know if that's the


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1 cartel -- I mean, that doesn't mix. That means this

2 individual who is purchasing this is talking about using it

3 himself to protect himself. And then Mr. Reese making a

4 mention about "yes, maybe all the ammunition can shoot those

5 crooked federales." That doesn't -- that doesn't point to

6 him selling to a cartel member who is going to go down there

7 and murder people in the drug business.

8 The confidential source, again --

9 THE COURT: Do the federales in Mexico -- do the

10 crooked ones wear a big "C" on their...

11 MR. LILLEY: No they don't Judge.

12 THE COURT: ...on their shirt?

13 MR. LILLEY: No, they don't, Judge. But they're

14 insinuating here, in their briefs and in their memorandums,

15 that in these conversations that Mr. Reese directly knows

16 that this is a cartel member. That's not -- that's not the

17 sort of situation.

18 Another quote from the confidential source in

19 those tapes: Quote, "The only way to use guns is to get

20 freedom."

21 Now, that's not typically -- you can take any

22 statement and turn it around however you want, Judge, but

23 that's not typically a statement made by a drug lord or a

24 cartel member, seeking -- they're trying to gain their

25 freedom.


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1 So those are three quotes, Judge, in that --

2 surrounding the other quotes that the government did not

3 point out.

4 Now, is he a danger? If you were to release him

5 today, is he a danger to himself or to him -- to others? I

6 submit that that's not met by clear and convincing evidence.

7 Just to -- let's just for argument's sake,

8 obviously, he knows maybe some of the purchase -- or the

9 evidence tends to indicate that maybe some of the stuff that

10 these individuals are buying may end up in Mexico. I don't

11 think that the evidence, at this time what has been

12 presented to court or presented to me, shows that there's a

13 direct link to Mr. Reese and to the cartels.

14 The only other -- it's just not there. So we see

15 cases all the time. And just because there is maybe

16 evidence that a crime is committed, it doesn't -- or the

17 government gives enough evidence right now, basically

18 piecemeals the evidence to the court and to me to show that

19 there's some apparent facts here that look questionable,

20 that doesn't necessarily mean that letting this individual

21 out means he's a danger to anybody. There's crimes

22 committed all the time, not necessary -- that doesn't

23 necessarily mean -- or alleged crimes committed all the

24 time; doesn't necessarily make those people charged

25 dangerous people or if they were released to be [sic]


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1 dangerous.

2 So do we think he's got any direct contact, any

3 direct dealings, that they've set forth now that shows that

4 he's shipping these drugs [sic] to cartel members?

5 Now, what we do have is we do have some guns that

6 were sold at -- or apparently sold at the place of business

7 in July and August of 2010 that ended up in Mexico. Now,

8 this investigation had not started then, so all that

9 information and the surrounding evidence surrounding those

10 gun sales has to come secondhand through -- through

11 cooperators.

12 Now, the only -- the two things, Judge, that the

13 government, I assume, will point to is a statement that they

14 have quoted a couple of times. They keep quoting some

15 statement in November of 2010 -- and I pointed this out in

16 my response -- about shooting people with a .50 caliber from

17 a long ways away. Again, that statement is unrecorded and

18 is not dated, so we assume that that comes from some

19 non-law-enforcement person.

20 Now, just in their response in the affidavit is

21 the only other information that -- to me, that the court

22 could at all hang its hat on as far as dangerousness. And

23 that's obviously on Agent -- the agent's -- on their reply,

24 Agent Valles' affidavit where he swears that somebody told

25 somebody that they talked to Rick Reese, and Rick Reese knew


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1 about going -- a cartel member in Mexico and going to go eat

2 lunch.

3 That's almost triple hearsay, that statement.

4 Agent Valles didn't hear it. The person who reported it

5 didn't hear it. Agent Valles didn't hear it. Some other

6 agent reported it through the chain of command.

7 Does a double or triple hearsay statement form

8 the basis of dangerousness? We don't believe it does,

9 Judge. And obviously, part of my job is to look at each bit

10 of evidence and make an argument against that. I'm not

11 asking the court to take everything individually. I'm

12 talking take everything together and is he a danger? Would

13 you release him?

14 Obviously, the parents live up in the

15 Kingston/Hillsboro area. There's not a lot out there. He

16 is -- they do have a land line. He's able to be monitored

17 by an electronic monitor. There's no reason to believe he's

18 going to take -- he doesn't have anything.

19 So in sum, Judge, we would submit that they have

20 not met either flight by a preponderance or dangerousness by

21 clear and convincing evidence.

22 THE COURT: Thank you.

23 Mr. Nammar?

24 MR. NAMMAR: Your Honor, the DVD that we

25 submitted to the court yesterday, what it shows is shocking


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1 and it's disturbing. It speaks for itself.

2 THE COURT: Except that I didn't see it, so...

3 MR. NAMMAR: And we're happy to play some

4 segments of it today. We have it. It's about seven minutes

5 long, but we could play just several minutes of it, if the

6 court would like to see it.

7 THE COURT: It's your case to make at this point.

8 My apologies for not seeing it. As you -- well, you don't

9 know. We were in court until 6:00 last night, so I just

10 didn't get to see it.

11 MR. NAMMAR: And I'm happy to play it. It

12 summarizes a lot of the quotes that we put in our detention

13 brief. But it also shows certain other things that you

14 can't get from just reading the quotes.

15 THE COURT: Go ahead.

16 (DVD playing.)

17 (DVD stopped.)

18 MR. NAMMAR: Your Honor, we're going to play that

19 segment again. What this particular segment -- it's very

20 short -- is in this segment, Rick Reese says to the straw

21 purchaser, after he's negotiated with the confidential

22 informant, "Have your young lady fill out the form." And

23 that's very telling to a classic straw purchase. You can

24 hear it slightly in this clip.

25 (DVD playing.)


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1 (DVD stopped.)

2 MR. NAMMAR: Your Honor, this next one you can

3 hear it. It talks about bringing a deuce, a military truck,

4 filled with ammo to the confidential informant in Mexico.

5 And you'll hear the comment after he says, you

6 know, "I can bring you this whole deuce" that he still

7 wouldn't have enough ammo.

8 (DVD playing.)

9 (DVD stopped.)

10 (Discussion off the record.)

11 In this last one, Your Honor, you'll hear that he

12 talks about forming his own militia and that they'll need to

13 band together and that there will be some sort of rule of

14 law.

15 (DVD playing.)

16 (DVD stopped.)

17 I just want to make one thing clear, Your Honor,

18 we didn't pick defendant's words. And if those words are

19 ugly, it's the defendant's fault, it's not the government's

20 fault.

21 And second, what you saw there is not puffery.

22 Your Honor, if he were puffing, he wouldn't be looking

23 around the store and then telling the confidential informant

24 in a whisper about sending guns to Mexico. I submit to the

25 court that what you see in this video is the real Rick


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1 Reese, not the Rick Reese that stands before you today and

2 tells you that he's current on his taxes.

3 Third, Your Honor, I just want to point out that

4 his conduct is not limited to July 29, 2011, as the

5 defendant asserts. He's indicted in conspiracies that date

6 back to July of 2010. He's named in an overt act of

7 November of 2010 and he's also the owner of New Deal

8 Shooting Sports, which Your Honor knows is a small

9 family-run gun store. And even if he's not present during

10 every undercover purchase, he certainly knows what's going

11 on in his store when the confidential informant comes in and

12 drops $5,000, time after time.

13 Now, we know he's aware of that because, in one

14 of these particular videos, Track 3, he tells the

15 confidential informant something to the effect of "it's

16 funny that you say that, that you wanted another .50 caliber

17 weapon. It's similar to the other Barrets" meaning the

18 other .50 calibers -- "you have purchased."

19 And I think it's also telling, Your Honor, what

20 Remington Reese says on this day, on July 29th. When the

21 confidential informant tells him, "Hey, I want to buy -- my

22 boss wants to buy $24,000 worth of firearms and ammo that I

23 need to take to Mexico."

24 And Remington Reese says, "Yeah, man, just talk

25 to my dad. I think we can do it."


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1 So to limit Rick Reese's a involvement to one day

2 is simply not accurate.

3 And when you pair this with the statement in the

4 affidavit, which was -- which Rick Reese made on August 8,

5 2010, to a Customs Border Protection officer who was

6 familiar with this investigation, you're shown a person who

7 knows exactly what's going on south of the border. And how

8 do we know that? Again, his own words. He says in one of

9 those video clips, that Juarez has become a ghost town. In

10 doing so, he tells us that he knows about the war going on

11 south of the border.

12 And despite this, Rick Reese, driven by greed,

13 agreed to sell $24,000 worth of firearms to help fuel that

14 war. The only way that this court can assure the safety of

15 the community, the community which includes our neighbors in

16 Juarez, is to detain the defendant.

17 You've heard some talk about risk of flight. I

18 submit to the court that, no matter how high the bond, there

19 is a real risk that the defendant runs. He runs because, as

20 you have seen, the strength of the evidence against him is

21 overwhelming.

22 He runs because, if he's convicted, he faces a

23 harsh Guideline sentence: 78 months on the money laundering

24 count alone.

25 He runs because the world as he knows it has been


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1 flipped upside down. His assets have been seized. He's

2 lost his ability to make a living selling guns. And his

3 entire family has been detained pending trial.

4 He also runs because, as you've seen in the

5 Pretrial Report, he has the resources to do so.

6 He runs because he has no reason to stick around

7 and face the consequences of his actions.

8 You've heard a little bit about electronic

9 monitoring, Your Honor. Electronic monitoring doesn't tell

10 us if the defendant's extorting or tampering with witnesses.

11 It doesn't tell us where he is when he cuts off his ankle

12 bracelet. It doesn't tell us that he's selling firearms to

13 cartel members under the table. It doesn't tell us if he's

14 gathering firearms and ammo for a standoff at the 400 acres

15 that he owns in Hillsboro. And it doesn't tell us whether

16 he's forming a militia that he talks about on this video.

17 The United States requests that Your Honor find,

18 just as Judge Wormuth found, defendant is both a flight risk

19 and danger.

20 THE COURT: Mr. Lilley?

21 MR. LILLEY: Judge, we could probably go back and

22 forth all day on this, but I just -- it's hard for me to

23 grasp, first, on flight risk, that. But I've said enough of

24 that.

25 With regard to dangerousness, Judge, obviously


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1 the tape showed exactly what the quotes had said. There's

2 obviously talk about guns and ammunition going to Mexico on

3 those tapes. Now, what I didn't see on those tapes --

4 and -- any direct talk about cartel members. Now, we talked

5 about -- there's talk -- I mean, obviously, there's talk

6 about the violence in Mexico. There's talk about ammunition

7 is going to get used up. There's talk a lot about a lot of

8 ammunition. There's talk about Juarez is a ghost town now.

9 And so that's a known fact. I mean, but does that establish

10 dangerousness, that Mr. Reese knows about that and that

11 Mr. Reese is discussing it with this individual? And even

12 knowing that -- or this individual intends to take this to

13 Mexico?

14 Now, I think there's a -- I think there's people,

15 obviously, in Mexico who are arming themselves, who are not

16 drug dealers and who are not cartel members. I mean that's

17 a sad state there. And I don't know who is doing what down

18 there. But do I think that establishes dangerousness,

19 Judge, by clear and convincing evidence? We don't think so.

20 One thing, as far as tampering with witnesses,

21 every -- this isn't -- "every witness" in this case is the

22 confidential informant and undercover agents. Obviously,

23 that -- they're the witnesses we're dealing with, so I'm not

24 I'm not exactly sure what witnesses -- this is not a case

25 where there's going to be 30 witnesses who are out there


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1 living in Las Cruces or Deming or the surrounding area that

2 are not law enforcement. I would say 99 percent of the

3 witnesses in this case are going to be law enforcement or

4 cooperators.

5 So I don't -- tampering with a witness doesn't

6 seem to be -- he doesn't -- first of all, they said he's got

7 the resources to -- to flee. I don't know how many times

8 I've said he has no resources. Everything he has has been

9 seized. There are no resources. He does not own a 400 acre

10 ranch. He's part shareholder of a corporation that owns a

11 400 acre ranch.

12 Now, his parents have a small tract that -- near

13 that 400 acre ranch. To insinuate that he's going to get a

14 militia up, I don't want to rehash that. It's set forth in

15 my appeal notice. There's no reason to believe he's

16 anti-law enforcement, anti-government or anything of that

17 nature, I guess, other than some insinuation from the

18 statements he made on the video. So I don't think those are

19 a factor the court should consider, or the court could

20 sufficiently use to establish dangerousness.

21 THE COURT: Mr. Lilley, one of the points you

22 made this morning is the lack of the word "cartel" in any of

23 these clips I've seen or the quotes that have been set forth

24 for me in the government's response. And certainly, the

25 word "cartel" appears many times in the Indictment. But


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1 whether these guns and this ammunition ever reached -- see,

2 I'm not sure cartel members carry a card that has a "C" on

3 it, you know, either, but that's not an element of this

4 crime: Who, ultimately, got them. The crime is whether he

5 was making -- he was selling guns, by way of straw purchase,

6 to other people. I mean, that's -- he's a firearms dealer

7 and he's not supposed to do that.

8 So there's the danger, it occurs -- it seems to

9 me. So the fact that I didn't hear the "C" word this

10 morning, that doesn't go to an element of this crime, does

11 it?

12 MR. LILLEY: I don't think it does, Judge. And

13 that's why I pointed that out because I think what we're

14 looking at here is dangerousness. And I think there is a

15 big difference. I think there's a huge difference in an

16 individual selling a gun and saying, "Hey, we're going to

17 use these guns in the drug business." I think that does

18 bring another element of dangerousness. That puts you into

19 a dangerous situation.

20 Now, I agree, it's not an element of the crime,

21 that these guns are necessarily crossing the border to go to

22 the cartel. If they're crossing the border illegally to go

23 to whoever, it's still illegal. But I think there's a

24 significant difference in the aspect of dangerousness, of

25 whether he's a dangerous person, and if -- whether he's


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1 releasing -- if he's in direct communication and talking to

2 these cartel members, then I probably wouldn't be here

3 appealing this today because that might be a direct

4 dangerousness. What we have is we don't have that

5 connection to the cartel. And I think that's important.

6 And I think there is a difference. Let's just

7 assume, for argument's sake, there's this gun shop right

8 here and there's people selling guns -- who have never been

9 in trouble their entire life, who are selling guns and maybe

10 knowing those guns might be used illegally somewhere. Well

11 does that necessarily make them a dangerous person? That

12 might make that decision to sell that gun -- might have been

13 a stupid decision, might have been an illegal decision in my

14 situation here, but does that necessarily make that person a

15 danger if that person's released?

16 I mean, you look at dangerousness in addition to

17 what you're charged with, but you look at who the person is

18 and what the person has done his entire life. And does that

19 point to "if I let him out, he's going to be a danger; he's

20 going to hurt somebody; he's go to flee; he's going to join

21 the cartel; he's going to somehow come up with some money

22 and get a bunch of witnesses and start finding witnesses and

23 tampering with witness?" It doesn't seem reasonable to say

24 that, Judge, in this situation, when you look at his history

25 and you look at the lack of apparent ties to bad people.


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1 Now, if these guns ended up sold to bad people

2 and bad things were done with those guns, none of us like

3 that. But to say he's a danger and we're not going to let

4 him out because some bad facts happened down the road and

5 there doesn't appear, right now, to be any direct link

6 between him and those bad people, how can we say then we let

7 him out he's going to be a danger? What is he going to do?

8 Who is he a danger to? So I don't think we can just take

9 some facts and say here are come quasi-dangerous things,

10 that these guns went down to Mexico and then, therefore,

11 automatically equate -- just forget who this guy has been

12 for 30 years, forget who he is, forget his situation right

13 now and just say he's a danger. I don't think that's met,

14 Judge.

15 THE COURT: Well, on the other side of that coin,

16 whether the "C" word is mentioned or not, he's involved in a

17 conversation that relates to killing law enforcement people

18 in Mexico. Whether they're crooked or they aren't is hard

19 to discern, it would seem to me, on a case-by-case basis.

20 And that sounds pretty dangerous to me.

21 Counsel, approach, please.

22 (Bench conference.)

23 It's very early in this process, and so I'm not

24 going to be too harsh in my judgments. But I've read the

25 Indictment, I know that there are multiple references to the


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1 cartels in the Indictment. And frankly, I would have

2 thought this morning I would have heard more in terms of

3 what those direct reference might have been. And so I'm

4 concerned that the series of statements that I saw from the

5 government today in their response are lacking in that sort

6 of substance. And the remarks about -- he uses the "N" word

7 and he talks about lesbians and he talks about trigger

8 locks. Those things to me seem more sensational, more

9 reprehensible than they are criminal. And I'm -- and I'll

10 pronounce my decision in a moment.

11 I am going to retain him. I'm not going to

12 find -- I'm not clear about flight risk, but I am going to

13 continue to hold him on the basis of danger, but I guess

14 this is all by way of saying to the government, I don't --

15 there's plenty of sensational stuff out there. We don't

16 have to -- it seems to me we're kind of scraping the barrel

17 when we come up with some comments about trigger locks and

18 lesbians at a bail hearing about cartel members.

19 MR. LICHVARCIK: Judge, the reason we included

20 some of those quotes is because we thought they didn't --

21 they were totally irrelevant as to the seriousness of the

22 offense and weight of the evidence, but we thought they were

23 very relevant to the history and characteristics of an

24 individual and who a person is. And we think that, frankly,

25 anyone who for lack of a better word, spews that kind of


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1 venom, I think that's relevant to the detention factors of

2 history and characteristics.

3 So we did think long and hard before including

4 that, but we thought that it was highly relevant and that it

5 would -- that it's very relevant to detention. We don't

6 think that's going to be an issue that's relevant at all

7 towards trial, but we thought it was an issue as to

8 detention.

9 And then, as to the cartel quotes, it's true that

10 no one during these conversations says "I'm a cartel member.

11 I'd like for you to sell me guns," but it's implicit in

12 everything that's said when they're ordering up

13 $24,000 worth of weapons, including a .50 caliber weapon

14 that's about 6 feet long that can shoot through a brick wall

15 and take down a helicopter as well. So when these things

16 are going down to Mexico, I think it's implicit that these

17 are the cartels.

18 Additionally, if this case goes to trial, we

19 anticipate having an officer, a CVP officer, take the stand.

20 It's not going to be triple hearsay anymore. It's going to

21 be a direct statement by the defendant. And this officer is

22 going to say "Rick Reese, to me, in front of Terri Reese,

23 said that he had met a cartel leader -- not even a member, a

24 leader -- in Casas Grandes, Mexico, and we can go down and

25 visit him, drink some beer and shoot some guns."


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1 So the use of the word "cartel" is not

2 sensational. It's implicit in the recordings. If there's

3 any doubt about that, Rick Reese confirms it when he says

4 that he met a cartel leader. And I guess, furthermore, it

5 could be our cooperator that he's talking about, but we're

6 not going to be nave, either, to think we caught the only

7 person who he was dealing with, but though we don't know who

8 he's referring to, at a minimum, he says "a cartel leader."

9 THE COURT: All right. I appreciate the

10 clarification, but given the nature of the Indictment, the

11 nature of the offenses, the sensational nature of it, I

12 don't think it necessary to castigate a guy because his

13 speech is offensive or his politics are offensive. That's

14 not ultimately going to be the issue in this case. And I

15 just know that the -- a lot of these things, the use of the

16 "N" word or the lesbian remark, those things are going to

17 find their way into the press. And I just think that's

18 unnecessary going forward. So just some grounds rules,

19 maybe, for how we go forward.

20 MR. LILLEY: Judge, may I say something right

21 now? We've got our motions deadline I was going to address.

22 Our motions deadline is on Monday, and they're just getting

23 a protective order through on discovery, so we don't have

24 any discovery yet. I anticipate at least the parties

25 agreeing that this should be designated a complex case


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22

1 rather than continuing it for trial every four weeks. I can

2 just file kind of a bare-bones motion to extend motions

3 deadlines indefinitely. That would be the appropriate thing

4 to do before our deadline on Monday.

5 THE COURT: I think you guys can work that out,

6 but it wouldn't surprise me if I saw something that asked

7 that the case be designated complex. So I'll sign it when I

8 see it.

9 MR. LILLEY: Thanks.

10 (Bench conference concluded.)

11 (Discussion off the record.)

12 MR. LILLEY: Judge, may I real quick?

13 THE COURT: Yes, sir.

14 MR. LILLEY: Mr. Reese would just like me to read

15 this to you.

16 (Reading) "I've had less than three weeks to

17 gather information and build a defense for my family and me.

18 Time best spent out of jail with my resources. Only

19 available to me with my release. This is literally the

20 fight of our lives. Please allow me -- please allow my best

21 and last opportunity to clear my wife, sons, and myself of

22 these charges by granting this bond. Rick Reese."

23 THE COURT: Having heard the presentations this

24 morning and reviewing those things that I have, as I

25 indicated earlier, I'm going to leave in place Judge


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1 Wormuth's determinations.

2 And just for purposes of clarification, I find

3 this a particularly dangerous situation, dangerous in terms

4 of the allegations. And I will continue to believe and find

5 that Mr. Reese is a flight risk. But the basis for my

6 decision this morning rests significantly on the finding of

7 dangerousness to the community.

8 As is always the case when I make such a

9 determination of no bond, I'm glad to expedite the matter on

10 the calendar any way that we can. And as there are

11 developments, if there are other developments that relate to

12 my determination this morning, I'm glad to reconsider my

13 decision.

14 MR. LILLEY: Yes, sir.

15 THE COURT: Anything else this morning?

16 MR. NAMMAR: No, Your Honor.

17 MR. LILLEY: No, sir.

18 THE COURT: Mr. Nammar, prepare an order for my

19 signature, please.

20 MR. NAMMAR: Yes, Your Honor.

21 THE COURT: I'll sign it when I see it. Thank

22 you.

23 (The proceedings concluded at 10:02 A.M.)

24

25


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1 C E R T I F I C A T E

2

3 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

4 DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO

5

6 I, Vanessa I. Alyce, RPR, NM CCR, and Official Court

7 Reporter for the United States, do HEREBY CERTIFY that I did

8 report in stenographic shorthand to the best of my ability

9 the foregoing pages 1-23 of the proceedings set forth

10 herein, and that the foregoing pages constitute a true

11 transcript of the proceedings had before the said Court held

12 in the city of Las Cruces, Doa Ana County, New Mexico, in

13 the matter therein stated.

14

15 In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand on

16 this 7th day of February 2012.

17

18

19 /S/Electronically FiledVanessa I. Alyce, RPR, NM CCR #259

20 Federal Official Court Reporter100 N. Church Street

21 Las Cruces, NM 88001Phone: (575) 528-1430

22

23

24

25



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