Saturday Rewind: Inside the Twin Cities probes
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty discusses the challenges and planning of her homicide investigations involving Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
Earlier this week, the federal government formally refused to cooperate with state and local prosecutors but that is not stopping either of the local homicide investigations into the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, who is leading those probes, fought back on Wednesday by placing so-called Touhy requests to secure that evidence.
“We are preparing to demand information in [the cases of Julio] Sosa-Celis and Alex Pretti,” Moriarty told All Rise News on Tuesday.
By Wednesday, Moriarty placed both of the promised requests.
Federal agents shot and killed Good and Pretti, but Sosa-Celis survived with a bullet wound in his leg. A judge ordered prosecutors to drop charges accusing Sosa-Celis of assaulting law enforcement after the testimony of federal agents collapsed. Those agents are now under both state and federal investigation.
“Our hope is — maybe it's wishful thinking — but the hope is that they simply hand over the information we've asked for,” Moriarty said. “If they don't, then we'll have to look at our options at that time.”
In the full interview on Legal AF, Moriarty describes the challenges posed by the government’s recalcitrance. Her office still doesn’t have official confirmation of Pretti’s killers, even though ProPublica reported that they are Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.
“We know that they took the gun. They took some of the ballistics evidence. So that’s the information for sure we know we don’t have,” she told All Rise News. “And then if they took something or they have something that we’re not aware of, obviously we’re not aware of it. And we’re taking steps to demand that evidence be released to us.”
Watch my full interview on the All Rise News playlist for Legal AF. Paid subscribers can watch that video — and others that ran this week — ad-free below.
Below the paywall:
Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, describes how Trump’s attacks on elections harm U.S. national security.
Kevin G. Hall, the North American editor of the investigative journalism collective OCCRP, unpacks the cross-border nature of Epstein’s crimes.
Mitchell Epner, a former sex trafficking prosecutor, analyzes the public misconduct arrest of former Prince Andrew in the fallout of the Epstein files.
