Ex-El Paso Border Patrol agents' sentences not commuted by Bush

Times wire and staff report
Posted: 11/24/2008 03:51:38 PM MST


WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush has granted pardons to 14 individuals and commuted the prison sentences of two others, The Associated Press learned Monday.

Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, the two former Border Patrol agents who were found guilty of discharging a firearm during the act of a crime, an offense that includes a mandatory 10-year sentence, were not on the list.

"We keep praying. We got millions of supporters all over the nation," Ramos' father-in-law, Joe Loya, said in an El Paso Times interview Monday. Loya said there could be more pardons issued by President Bush before Christmas.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ordered Ramos and Compean to be resentenced after the appeals court dropped a tampering-with-evidence conviction. The dropped conviction did not change their overall sentence.

The new round of White House pardons are Bush's first since March and come less than two months before he will end his presidency. The crimes committed by those on the list include drug offenses, income tax evasion, bank embezzlement and violation of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.