Kilmar Abrego Garcia's lawyer undermines lead investigator at hearing

Sean Hecker, whose firm helped Carroll win an $88 million verdict against Trump, poked holes at the heart of the government's investigation into the Maryland man.

A protester holds a “Justice for Kilmar” placard in front of federal court in Nashville, Tenn. on Wednesday.

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The federal agent leading the criminal investigation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia admitted during cross-examination on Wednesday that he never checked whether his main cooperating witness gave consistent testimony to the government.

The admission came during devastating cross-examination by Abrego’s attorney Sean Hecker, a named partner at the firm that helped E. Jean Carroll win sexual abuse and defamation judgments against Donald Trump adding up to $88 million.

On Wednesday, Hecker grilled the government’s lead investigator — Homeland Security Investigations special agent Peter Joseph — about his failure to take basic steps to assess the credibility of the government’s cooperating witnesses. Prosecutors accuse Abrego of participating in a conspiracy to smuggle immigrants into the United States in 2022, when Tennessee police pulled him over in an SUV with several other passengers during a traffic stop.

Though authorities let Abrego go without charges or a speeding ticket, the Trump administration now claims that the bodycam footage of the three-year-old incident shows a conspiracy to smuggle immigrants into the country. Those criminal charges largely hinge upon the testimony of two main cooperating witnesses. Both were convicted of felonies and are close relatives of each other.

“By no means making it up”

The first, Jose Hernandez Reyes, was interviewed by other agents from Homeland Security Investigations at least three times before speaking to Joseph, who acknowledged that he never read the notes from those prior interviews.

“I was more interested in what he had to say to me,” Joseph said.

Hernandez Reyes was convicted twice of felony offenses and deported five times, but Joseph was only aware of two of his deportations. At a previous hearing, Joseph testified that Hernandez Reyes was transferred to a halfway house because his most recent 30-month sentence was nearly completed, but the agent admitted today that the sentencing break was “atypical.” He also did not know the full scale of what the government promised Hernandez Reyes or other cooperating witnesses in exchange for their testimony.

During his first interview with the government, Hernandez Reyes said that he never noticed Abrego having any tattoos that would suggest an affiliation with MS-13. It was a remarkable admission from the government’s lead cooperating witness against a man the Trump administration routinely labels a gang member. Agent Joseph claimed that Hernandez Reyes described the question about gang affiliations as “dangerous,” but that remark did not appear in the agent’s notes from the meeting.

Asked about the omission, Joseph replied: "I am by no means making it up."

Though Abrego isn’t charged with sexually inappropriate conduct, prosecutors previously alleged that a female cooperator, N.V., said that Abrego solicited nudes from her via Snapchat when she was 15 years old. Agent Joseph said that the IP address from the Snapchat account was linked to a house where Abrego may have lived at one time.

However, Hecker suggested today that the birth date associated with that Snapchat account was not his client’s.

“You know that Mr. Abrego's birthday is in July, right?” Hecker asked.

Agent Joseph, the lead investigator on the case, admitted that he did not know when Abrego’s birthday was. Abrego has not been charged with any sexual misconduct, and another federal judge found the evidence prosecutors presented on the subject unreliable.

Joseph only started his investigation on April 28, 2025, just weeks after the Supreme Court ordered the government to “facilitate” Abrego’s release from a dangerous prison in El Salvador.

“Everything here is circumstantial"

The face-off between the Homeland Security agent and Hecker came during a hearing to determine whether a federal judge would affirm a ruling that the government did not meet its legal burden to detain Abrego before trial.

Prosecutors promised to “present additional evidence” at today’s hearing, but those revelations mostly tied to the same cooperating witnesses. The Chevrolet Suburban SUV that Abrego drove during his initial traffic stop in 2022 was registered to Hernandez Reyes, and phone records introduced into evidence today indicated that Abrego called Hernandez Reyes at the time of that stop.

Agent Joseph said that an iCloud account associated with Hernandez Reyes listed “Kitmar” as a “chofer,” the Spanish word for driver.

But the government’s allegations make clear that, in their own telling, Hernandez Reyes is far higher up in the alleged conspiracy, and his deal with the government earned him an early release from prison and help staying in the country, five deportations later.

U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. did not immediately decide whether to release Abrego, and he indicated that he does not intend to issue a ruling this week.

During oral arguments, Crenshaw said that appellate court precedent set a low bar in matters of detention in cases involving minors as victims, and that was true even in the absence of direct evidence.

"There’s no direct evidence,” he said. “Everything here is circumstantial."

Last month, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes heard similar testimony from Agent Joseph before finding the cooperating witnesses were “unreliable” and delivered accounts that “defy common sense.” She ultimately found that the government did not show that Abrego was a danger to the community or a risk of flight, the standard needed to justify pre-trial detention. She also found that the case did not involve minors as victims.

If Crenshaw finds the government was entitled to a detention hearing, the judge could find that the bail conditions set by the magistrate are restrictive enough to guarantee Abrego’s presence at trial and the safety of the community. Abrego’s bail conditions involve home detention and location monitoring.

Prosecutors have said that immigration authorities will take Abrego into custody and try to deport him if he is released from criminal detention. Another federal judge is considering whether she has the power to order the government to let Abrego return to Maryland, where his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura and three children live.

Watch:

Before today’s hearing, the advocacy group CASA’s chief of organizing Lydia Walther-Rodriguez delivered remarks next to Abrego’s wife, Ms. Vasquez Sura.