Jury finds Spokane man fighting deportation not guilty of assaulting Border Patrol officer

Martin R. Diaz folded his hands and placed his head on the table before grabbing a tissue to wipe away tears. His attorney supported him with an arm on his back.

Many of Diaz’s roughly 20 family members and supporters seated in the courtroom gasped, and some then shed tears.

The cheerful tears came late Tuesday afternoon after they learned a jury found Diaz not guilty of assaulting a U.S. Border Patrol agent who arrested him this spring at Diaz’s northeast Spokane home.

“This was a hard case and a close case,” U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Pennell said.

Kendall Diaz, Martin Diaz’s wife, said she was “beyond grateful.”

Martin Diaz spent several minutes hugging family members, who clapped and cheered when court adjourned.

The arrest by federal immigration agents in Diaz’s front yard sparked local protests amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Diaz, 35, was a toddler when he came to the U.S. from Mexico with his family and tried unsuccessfully for years to become a U.S. citizen.

The agents were surveilling Diaz after multiple failed attempts to appeal his deportations on the grounds he could face torture if he is sent back to Mexico.

Diaz was accused of elbowing one of the agents, Walter Sketch, in his eye during the rainy April 29 struggle. While Sketch emerged from the encounter with a black eye, it appeared the 12-person jury, which reached a verdict in less than two hours Tuesday, determined that even if Diaz did strike Sketch, it may not have been intentional.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Ellis claimed all of Diaz’s acts during his interaction with Sketch and the other two agents were intentional, including running from them, cursing at them and hitting Sketch. He also said Diaz yelling for his roommate to “get,” meaning fight, the agents shows Diaz struck the officers intentionally.

Diaz’s attorney, Carter Powers Beggs, displayed a rubber band for the jury to show that it’s feasible Diaz accidentally struck Sketch after losing his grip on the fence because Diaz was pulling away from Sketch, and Sketch was pulling Diaz toward him.

The other two federal agents, Charles Wilson and John Zappone, testified they didn’t see Diaz strike Sketch. The cameras didn’t pick up the alleged blows, either.

The struggle between Diaz and Sketch was captured on Diaz’s home security cameras and shown to the jury several times during the trial, which started Monday.

In the videos, Diaz is seen running toward his backyard gate as Sketch chases him on the wet grass before crashing into Diaz as he appears to try to open the gate to escape. Sketch testified that he wrapped both arms around Diaz, who was holding onto the fence with his right hand.

Sketch pulled him away from the gate and back into the front yard as two other agents eventually arrived. Sketch said Diaz struck him sometime between pulling him from the gate and before Diaz was taken to the ground. He said he then punched Diaz in the face before two other agents assisted in apprehending Diaz.

Sketch testified he also pepper sprayed Diaz during the struggle, and some of the spray got on his own eye.

Wilson, who retired in July after 22 years with Border Patrol, was one of the other agents who helped apprehend Diaz.

He said he heard Sketch tell Diaz to stop fighting or he was going to pepper spray him. Wilson said he didn’t know at the time of the struggle that Sketch deployed the spray.

Sketch drove to Diaz’s home in an unmarked vehicle wearing plainclothes, besides a tactical vest that identified him as a Border Patrol agent. He also wore a neck gaiter that covered his face below his eyes.

Sketch said he activated emergency lights as he approached Diaz’s home, identified himself as a Border Patrol agent and ordered Diaz to stop, according to court records.

On the video, however, the audio clearly picks up a dog barking in the background but doesn’t appear to capture anything spoken by Sketch until he catches up to Diaz as he’s trying to open his backyard fence’s gate.

Zappone, the third agent that day, could be seen running on video to assist Sketch. Zappone said he was an assistant special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in Spokane before moving to Tucson, Arizona, where he supervises HSI agents.

He said he saw Diaz “flailing” his arms but didn’t see Diaz strike Sketch.

Zappone said agents tried to arrest Diaz in February by creating a ruse outside Diaz’s home. Agents tried to simulate the aftermath of a car accident by parking near his vehicle and getting on their phones to coax Diaz out. Instead, they spoke with Diaz’s wife and their roommate. They temporarily detained the roommate thinking it may have been Diaz.

Diaz has run from Border Patrol agents before.

Seth Justesen, a Border Patrol agent in Spokane, testified Tuesday that he arrested Diaz in 2018 outside the Spokane County Courthouse after a short foot pursuit. Justesen said he and another agent were able to arrest Diaz, who had an “order of removal” for his arrest, but not before Diaz resisted arrest, such as twisting his arms back and forth, Justesen said.

Powers Beggs said his client first appeared in court for immigration purposes in 2007. He’s been in and out of custody several times but has never been deported.

He’s been convicted of third-degree assault in a case where he earlier had been charged with third-degree rape of a girl who said she did not give her consent. He was then convicted in 2017 of felony domestic violence following a confrontation with his ex-wife’s father.

Pennell, Powers Beggs and Kendall Diaz said Martin Diaz’s future is unclear.

Pennell signed an order releasing Martin Diaz from the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service. He was released from Spokane County Jail as of Tuesday night.

Kendall Diaz said after the trial she was heading to the Spokane County Jail to learn more. She said she was prepared for ICE to detain him.

She said in June she was still worried about her husband’s immigration status, but that was “sitting in the background” of his criminal case.

“We are facing the criminal charges up front, but immigration isn’t going anywhere,” Kendall Diaz said at the time.