In testimony last month in federal court in Minnesota, FBI special agent Bernardo Medellin appeared to directly contradict a claim that ICE agent Jonathan Ross made under oath about whether a man they were trying to detain had asked to speak to his attorney.
Medellin’s testimony, which details federal training for interactions with drivers, also calls into question whether Ross followed his training during the interaction that led to the shooting and killing of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother, last week. Ross has been identified by multiple media outlets as the shooter; while the Trump administration has declined to confirm those reports, details about the shooter shared by Vice President JD Vance match details of Ross’ biography.
As WIRED previously reported, in December Ross testified that last June he led a team seeking to apprehend a man named Roberto Carlos Muñoz-Guatemala, who had an administrative warrant out for being in the US without authorization. According to his testimony, after following Muñoz-Guatemala in an unmarked car, Ross—who was wearing ranger green and gray and had his badge on his belt—approached the man and asked him to roll down his window and open his door. He then broke the rear driver side window with a special tool and reached into the vehicle. Muñoz-Guatemala accelerated, eventually shaking Ross, who’d fired his Taser at him with the vehicle in motion. Ross testified that he needed 33 stitches due to his injuries; Muñoz-Guatemala was later convicted of assault on a federal officer with a dangerous weapon.
At trial, prosecutors sought to establish that Muñoz-Guatemala understood that Ross was a federal law enforcement officer during their initial interaction. Ross testified that he repeatedly told Muñoz-Guatemala that he was law enforcement in both English and Spanish, and that he had “no concerns” Muñoz-Guatemala didn’t speak English because he replied to Ross in English.
“When you say, ‘replied back in English,’” asked assistant US attorney Raphael Coburn, “what do you mean?”
“He would—he would reply back he wants his attorney, I believe he said,” responded Ross.
During the trial, this became a point of contention because it had not come up during pretrial interviews, and was thus a surprise to both Muñoz-Guatemala’s attorney, Eric Newmark, and to US prosecutors.
“I was, frankly, quite shocked that he said it,” Newmark told district court judge Jeffrey Bryan. “It was not in any of his previous statements, and it’s my understanding he never—the government was as surprised as I was that he said it.” Newmark went on to explain that Ross’ claim pertained to whether his client “believed he was talking to law enforcement or someone who was trying to do him harm,” and that he intended to cross-examine Ross on the fact that Muñoz-Guatemala’s purported request for a lawyer had come up neither during an interview Ross gave the FBI nor during pretrial preparation—something neither Bryan nor Coburn, the government lawyer, objected to. Under questioning from Newmark, Ross conceded it was “fair to say” he had not previously made this claim.
The question came up again as Newmark cross-examined Medellin, an FBI special agent who took part in the operation under Ross’ leadership. Medellin testified that Muñoz-Guatemala—whose English he described as limited, and for whom the court provided an interpreter during the two-day trial—had asked Ross repeatedly who he was.
“You never heard Mr. Muñoz-Guatemala ask for an attorney, did you?” asked Newmark.
“No,” said Medellin, who affirmed that he had overheard most or all of the conversation, and said again that he had never heard Muñoz-Guatemala ask for a lawyer.
In response to a WIRED question about his opinion of the credibility of Ross’ testimony, Newmark said: “I’m not commenting about this case as it is still pending, but I think you can tell by my questioning of him and others what I thought about that.”
