Judge dismisses felony against man who said agents attacked him in Charlotte
Before prosecutors could present any evidence to support claims that Cristobal Maltos hit an immigration officer with his car in Charlotte last month, a judge dismissed his case. It was unclear if that was because the evidence was weak; officials did not say.
Maltos’ charge is at least the third charge dismissed in relation to federal immigration officers’ five-day operation in Charlotte in mid-November. Another man accused of hitting agents with his car saw one of his charges dismissed, and prosecutors dismissed a felony charge against a woman accused of assaulting an officer before refiling misdemeanor charges.
The Department of Homeland Security provided conflicting numbers for how many were arrested in the operation dubbed “Charlotte’s Web,” and the government has not released the names of most of the detained. Maltos’ non-immigration case is one of few that give insight to Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers’ time in Charlotte.
Maltos was charged with felony assaulting, resisting and impeding a federal officer when he hit an officer with the side mirror of his car. Maltos denies that. A federal judge dismissed his case before any further evidence could be revealed.
Man stopped by Border Patrol in Charlotte tells his story
In a short interview with The Charlotte Observer, Maltos previously said:
On Nov. 17, the second day of the federal operation, Maltos was driving down South Tryon Street to get groceries when a car sideswiped him. (Border Patrol agents especially targeted areas in east Charlotte and along South Tryon Street, which is dotted by Hispanic and Latin businesses.)
He followed the car and called 911. Then, three cars and 10 federal agents with guns surrounded him. He was “terrified and in shock.” He accidentally released the clutch on his manual drive car, and the car stalled.
“Before I could process anything, the agents rushed me,” he said.
They broke his window, pried open the driver’s door and slammed him onto the asphalt and broken glass below.
He told them he was a U.S. citizen and that he had just undergone surgery. They said they didn’t care, dragged him into one of their unmarked SUVs and told him they were “two seconds from shooting me,” he said.
He spent the night in the Gaston County Jail. The next day, an FBI agent filed charges against him.
FBI said man assaulted immigration agents. Evidence unknown.
In a Nov. 18 affidavit, a federal official told a federal judge that immigration agents noticed Maltos following them along South Tryon Street. They said he reversed his car the first time they tried to stop him. The next time, three cars and five federal agents surrounded him.
One agent leaned over the hood of Maltos’ car, court documents say, and the car moved forward about 30 feet. Officials charged him with the felony assault charge.
Maltos was set to have a preliminary hearing, where a federal magistrate judge would determine probable cause to charge him and move the case forward, this week. But federal prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina last week asked a judge to dismiss Maltos’ felony charge.
On Monday, a signed order from U.S. Magistrate Judge David Keesler did just that.
Keesler last month also dismissed a key charge in Miguel Angel Garcia Martinez’s case. Prosecutors charged him with the same count Maltos faced, but they added on that he used a deadly weapon — his car — to assault officers.
Video played in court showed that officers chased Martinez and planned to “smash” into him after he fled from officers trying to initiate a voluntary stop. Martinez’s lawyer argued that he did not have to stop for them and that he was within his rights to follow and document agents in public.
Martinez still faces one charge, but Keesler released him on an unsecured bond and dropped the charge accusing him of using his car to assault officers.
Heather Morrow, a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools bus driver, was arrested and charged with felony assaulting an officer during a protest outside a DHS office in Charlotte. Video does not show her assaulting an officer but does show an officer tackling her. Her felony charge was dismissed, and she now faces four misdemeanors.
