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Christian Castro, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer charged federally this week for lying to investigators about the shooting of a Venezuelan man during Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis, reportedly turned himself in Thursday to federal authorities. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty reacts to the developments in the case with WCCO's Susie Jones.

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00:00It's not a surprise. We haven't had any direct communication with U.S. Attorney's Office indicating that they had indicted
00:08or were indicting.
00:09We certainly were hearing the same rumors from media and others that that was in process for quite some time.
00:19I think the the issue is that rather than charge him with civil rights violations, plus the whatever their charges
00:29are about lying, they just chose to go with that.
00:32And so I think what what I'm understanding is that there's been a fairly big struggle between Maine Justice, perhaps
00:40the administration and the U.S. Attorney's Office and the local people that work in the office.
00:45Does this have any bearing on his status here in Minnesota?
00:52Only in probably one respect. So we so we had filed an emergency lawsuit, as you know, asking a judge
01:03in Texas to order Abbott, Governor Abbott, to sign the extradition paperwork.
01:08Governor Abbott had strung out that signing for 90 days, which meant under Texas law that Mr. Castro was going
01:17to be released from custody.
01:19We know he did that for political reasons, because the first time he was asked about our lawsuit and the
01:26extradition paperwork, he responded that he didn't trust Governor Walz and that there was a lot of fraud here or
01:33something of that nature.
01:33So this is all political. But even though the judge said he would not order Abbott to sign, he said
01:42it just wasn't time.
01:43He said that Abbott hadn't indicated that he wouldn't sign, that he hadn't indicated that he would.
01:48So the judge was willing to give him more time. But that also means we can go back before the
01:53court and say, hey, you know, it's been additional time.
01:56We still have nothing because as far as today, he still hasn't signed it.
02:01So in terms of what happens now with with the federal indictment, I am imagining that they will try to
02:10pick him up in Texas.
02:11He will probably have a right to have a detention hearing either in Texas or here in Minnesota.
02:18If he has a detention hearing in Texas, the judge would have to decide whether to detain him or not
02:25if they decide not to detain him.
02:29And that's a possibility, given the fact that he hasn't been charged with a violent offense.
02:34It's some sort of charges or an indictment related to lying.
02:40If he was let out, he would be given a court date up here in Minnesota.
02:45But the moment he came into Minnesota or, you know, we became aware of his him being here, he would
02:50be arrested on our case as well because we still have an active warrant.
02:55If he is detained in Texas, they would bring him up here.
03:00Our warrant is active.
03:02And then we would be having a conversation with the U.S. attorney's office about who would prosecute first.
03:08But in terms of our charges, it really doesn't make a difference.
03:12We have separate jurisdiction.
03:14We obviously have different charges.
03:16And we're prepared to go ahead on our charges.
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