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ICE says 2 officers may have lied under oath about shooting migrant in Minnesota

February 13, 2026
ICE says 2 officers may have lied under oath about shooting migrant in Minnesota

The acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement says that two of its officers appear to have made "untruthful statements" about shooting a migrant in Minnesota and may face federal charges for their actions.

"Today, a joint review by ICE and the Department of Justice (DOJ) of video evidence has revealed that sworn testimony provided by two separate officers appears to have made untruthful statements," Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said in a statement.

"Both officers have been immediately placed on administrative leave pending the completion of a thorough internal investigation. Lying under oath is a serious federal offense. The U.S. Attorney's Office is actively investigating these false statements," the statement said.

"The men and women of ICE are entrusted with upholding the rule of law and are held to the highest standards of professionalism, integrity, and ethical conduct. Violations of this sacred sworn oath will not be tolerated. ICE remains fully committed to transparency, accountability, and the fair enforcement of our nation's immigration laws," Lyons added.

Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images - PHOTO: US Border Patrol agents detain a person near Roosevelt High School during dismissal time in Minneapolis, Minnesota, January 7, 2026.

The statement from Lyons comes a day after the top federal prosecutor in Minnesota asked a judge to dismiss charges against two men, including one who was shot in the leg by an immigration agent, citing "newly discovered evidence" in what was initially framed as a "violent" attack on law enforcement during an enforcement operation.

"Newly discovered evidence in this matter is materially inconsistent with the allegations in the complaint affidavit. ... as well as the preliminary-hearing testimony,"  U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota Daniel Rosen wrote in the filing Wednesday evening. It remains unclear what specific new evidence Rosen was referencing.

Rosen has asked the court to dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning the charges cannot be refiled.

"Accordingly, dismissal with prejudice will serve the interests of justice," Rosen wrote.

In the wake of the shooting on Jan. 14 --  a week after an ICE agentfatally shot Renee Goodin Minneapolis -- the Trump administration said the man who was shot, Julio Cesar Sosa-Selis, attacked a federal law enforcement officer with a "shovel or a broom stick" and that the incident was part of "an attempt to evade arrest and obstruct law enforcement."

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Lawyers for another man charged in the incident, Alfredo Aljorna, said surveillance videos did not corroborate the FBI's claims that an agent was assaulted and said Sosa-Celis was shot while standing at his doorway some distance away from the officer.

Earlier this month attorneys for Aljorna also urged a judge to prohibit the government from deporting key witnesses who they said cast doubt that an agent was repeatedly struck with a broom or a snow shovel, Judge Paul Magnuson granted the request.

The reversal on the assault charges for Sosa-Celis and Aljorna comes after several discrepancies emerged between statements from Department of Homeland Security officials and details outlined in court records regarding their arrests.

DHS initially said in statements to media that officers were conducting a "targeted traffic stop" for Sosa-Celis when he fled in his vehicle, crashed into another car and attempted to evade arrest. The agency alleged that Sosa-Celis "violently" assaulted an officer and that two other individuals exited a nearby apartment and joined the attack "with a snow shovel and broom handle."

Lawyers allege Dept. of Homeland Security is denying legal counsel to Minnesota detainees

According to DHS, Sosa-Celis struck the officer with "a shovel or broom stick," prompting the officer to fire what the agency described as a defensive shot "to defend his life," striking Sosa-Celis in the leg.

"What we saw last night in Minneapolis was an attempted murder of federal law enforcement," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in the Jan. 15 statement.

However, an affidavit from FBI Special Agent Timothy Schanz, who investigated the shooting, stated that ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations agents were attempting to stop a different man identified as Joffre Stalin Paucar Barrera -- not Sosa-Celis -- whom they believed was in the country illegally. According to Schanz, agents later identified the driver DHS agents stopped as a different man, Aljorna.

Schanz wrote that Aljorna struck a light pole and fled on foot toward his apartment building.

Sosa-Celis was allegedly standing on the porch and yelling at Aljorna to run faster, the affidavit says. Aljorna slipped and allegedly "began tussling" with the agent before Sosa-Celis grabbed a broom and began striking the agent, according to the affidavit.

Stephen Maturen/Getty Images - PHOTO: A woman looks on at a memorial for Renee Good who was shot and killed by an ICE agent last month, February 12, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The agent "then saw who he believed was a third Hispanic male approach with a snow shovel, and this male also began striking" him, Schanz said in the affidavit. The third man was identified as Gabriel Alejandro Hernandez-Ledezma by DHS, who accused him of also assaulting the officer.

Sosa-Celis was shot in the leg as he attempted to go inside the apartment, the affidavit says.

Video reviewed by ABC News' Visual Verification team includes a 911 call from individuals identified as relatives of Sosa-Celis, who said agents fired as he was attempting to close the door.

After Lyons issued his statement on Friday, attorney Brian D. Clark shared a reaction from the families of Sosa-Celis and Aljorna.

"Julio, Alfredo, and their families are overjoyed at this news. The charges against them were based on lies by an ICE agent who recklessly shot into their home through a closed door," they said in the statement. "They are so happy justice is being served by the government's request to dismiss all charges with prejudice. The identify of the ICE agent should be made public and he should be charged for his crime."

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4 indicted after Minneapolis clashes, including a woman accused of biting off an officer’s fingertip

February 13, 2026
4 indicted after Minneapolis clashes, including a woman accused of biting off an officer's fingertip

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Four people have been indicted on federal charges stemming from clashes with federal officers in Minneapolis, including one woman who is accused of biting off an immigration officer's fingertip.

Associated Press

The three others were charged in connection with threats made to FBI agents after documents containing the agents' personal information was stolen from a vehicle.

According to sworn statements filed in those cases, the FBI agents were investigating a shooting by an Immigration Customs Enforcement Officer on Jan. 14 when protests made the area unsafe and they had to flee on foot, leaving behind two of their vehicles. The vehicles were vandalized and broken into, and several things were stolen including guns, FBI identification cards and documents that included addresses, phone numbers and other personal information of some FBI employees.

That personal information was then posted on social media, according to the court documents, and that's when the officers began receiving threatening phone calls, text messages and emails.

Woman accused of biting off immigration officer's fingertip

Claire Louise Feng, 27, is accused of biting off the fingertip of a special agent from Homeland Security Investigations during a Jan. 24 protest that happened after immigration officers shot and killed Alex Pretti. Feng, who is from St. Paul, Minnesota, was indicted on the charge of assaulting a federal officer resulting in injury.

In an affidavit filed in the case, Homeland Security Investigations special agent Bronson Day said an immigration officer was attempting to arrest another protester when Feng tackled the officer. A Customs and Border Protection officer took Feng to the ground and was trying to secure her arms when Feng bit the officer's finger through a glove, Day wrote.

The day was very cold and the officer didn't immediately realize the severity of the injury, Day wrote, but when the officer removed his glove, he realized the tip of his ring finger had been removed, exposing the bone. He was able to get medical attention within an hour, Day wrote.

Feng's attorney, Kevin C. Riach, said she would fight the charge.

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"All you have to do to assess the credibility of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents when they make allegations like this is to look at yesterday's dismissal that confirmed ICE agents have made false allegations against a defendant," Riach said. "We look forward to fighting this case and clearing Ms. Feng's name."

3 people indicted in threats to FBI agents

Brenna Marie Doyle, 18, of Spokane, Washington, was indicted Thursday on charges of threatening to murder a federal law enforcement officer, threatening to murder a federal law enforcement officer's family member and interstate transmission of a threat to injure a person. The indictment alleges she left voice messages on the FBI agent's phone threatening to kill them and their spouse and child.

Doyle hasn't entered a plea yet, and her attorney Robert D. Richman said they were waiting to receive evidence from the government so they can evaluate the case. He noted Doyle lives in Washington state and has never been to Minnesota.

"There is no allegation that she took any steps whatsoever to carry out any of these threats or come within a thousand miles of the agent," Richman said.

James Patrick Lyons, 45, of California was indicted on five counts of interstate transmission of threats to injure a person, and Jose Alberto Ramirez, 29, of Illinois was indicted on one count of the same charge. Both men are accused of sending threatening text messages to FBI employees.

Attorneys for Ramirez and Lyons did not immediately respond to messages requesting comment. Neither man has had the opportunity to enter a plea.

Boone reported from Boise, Idaho.

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‘I thought they were just going to execute me’: American held in Venezuela during Maduro’s last days tells all

February 13, 2026
'I thought they were just going to execute me': American held in Venezuela during Maduro's last days tells all

James Luckey-Lange has been spending a lot of time looking at the names he carved on a bar of soap he smuggled out of a Venezuelan prison in his underwear.

CNN James Luckey-Lange in Peru. - James Luckey-Lange

The 28-year-old New York native spent just over a month detained by Venezuelan officials, whom he says beat him, deprived him of food and only released him on January 13 following theUS captureof the country's then president, Nicolás Maduro.

At one point, he said, "I thought they were just going to execute me. That was the scariest time. Besides that, I was just really frustrated, really aggravated [and] angry."

Now back at his aunt's home in New Jersey, Luckey-Lange is looking up the names of his former prison mates on his soap and searching for their families on Facebook to let them know they might be alive.

James Luckey-Lange in Bolivia. - James Luckey-Lange

He was held in solitary confinement for long stretches and didn't get a good look at many of his prison mates. "I've never seen a lot of these people's faces. It's hard to find their families if you don't know what they look like," Luckey-Lange told CNN.

"I hope they don't think I'm up there getting tortured right now," he said of those he was held with. "I hope they know I got out."

Dozens of Americans have been arrested and detained in Venezuela over the last several years — part of a long campaign by the former Venezuelan leader to use Americans as political pawns. But Luckey-Lange's detention and release came at an unprecedented moment in US-Venezuela relations. President Donald Trump sent special operations forces to snatch Maduro in early January. His administration is now exerting huge amounts of influence on the interim Venezuelan government led by former Maduro acolytes.

Like many Americans detained in Venezuela, Luckey-Lange was accused of espionage and subjected to the harsh conditions of Venezuela's notorious prisons. The experiences take a physical toll on the inmates that can last for months, if not years, and a mental toll that may never go away.

But Luckey-Lange has no regrets about traveling to Venezuela. "I got to learn something" and see "what's really going on" there, he said wryly on a recent Zoom call from a coffee shop in New Jersey.

'I'm not the type of guy that really wants to be confined'

The US government urges Americans not to travel to Venezuela in part because of "a very high risk of wrongful detention."

The warning didn't resonate with a wanderlust like Luckey-Lange.

"I'm not the type of guy that really wants to be confined," he said.

Luckey-Lange is the son of the late Diane Luckey, a singer known as Q Lazzarus whose single was featured in the film "The Silence of the Lambs." Following her death in 2022, Luckey-Lange traveled throughout Latin America, learning Spanish andbloggingabout his adventures. Venezuela was meant to be his last stop on that trip.

Luckey-Lange wanted to visit Mount Roraima, a plateau in the east of Venezuela with views of Guyana and Brazil. The authorities detained him, he said, in December after he crossed the border from Brazil to ask about a visa.

He was flown several hundred miles from a military base in eastern Venezuela to the capital of Caracas, where he said he was held at the headquarters of the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence, known as the DGCIM.

Veneuelan prisons generally don't meet "the minimum rules for the treatment of international inmates," much less "the national standards of hygiene, sanitation, care, nutrition, etcetera, that should be met in our prisons," Gonzalo Himiob, vice president of the Venezuelan human rights organization Foro Penal, told CNN. Foro Penal confirmed that Luckey-Lange was held at a DGCIM facility.

Luckey-Lange said his fellow prisoners were from all over Latin America and the Caribbean, among other places.

"They starved me and didn't give me any water" for days, Luckey-Lange recalled. "I was chained up in solitary with the camera in my room. Every time I would break out of the restraints from the waist, because it was tied by rope and I would untie it, they'd come in, beat me, throw me back in."

From the start, Venezuelan authorities accused him of being a spy, Luckey-Lange said. His hiking boots were military-style, they claimed. They drew maps in his notebook of roads and military bases in an effort, he said, to frame him as some sort of James Bond.

"No matter what I'd say, they say they didn't believe me because they really wanted to catch a spy," he recalled. "They all wanted to go home and tell their wives, tell their higher-ups, that they had caught a spy."

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Some four days later after arriving at DGCIM headquarters, Luckey-Lange was transferred to El Rodeo, a prison complex where Maduro imprisoned scores of political prisoners. He languished there for weeks and was only allowed outside once, he said.

"I was making a joke in there, all we have is books and soap," he told CNN. "All the dominoes, all the chess pieces, everything is made out of soap."

Thinking there was a good chance he would get out of prison before the others, "I started carving the names on soap so I can talk to their families, talk to somebody about getting them out," Luckey-Lange said.

About 10 days before his release, US special forces captured Maduro and his wife. Luckey-Lange and his fellow inmates at El Rodeo had no idea what happened until days later. They got fragments of rumors through a game of prison telephone. Cries from people outside on the street suggested something big was afoot. Military and prison officials told Luckey-Lange and other inmates that Maduro would return to power, he said, even though the deposed leader was already in custody in New York.

After Maduro's ouster, the interim Venezuelan government pledged to release political prisoners, including Venezuelans and foreign nationals, without specifying how many or who would be released. The Trump administration had publicly pressed for the release of all political prisoners.

'You're famous'

Luckey-Lange didn't know he was being freed until he was out.

He had heard his name whispered the night before, he recalled. But when the prison director came to his cell, Luckey-Lange thought he might be taken to the "fourth floor," where he said people were tortured.

In the second week of January, Venezuelan officials drove him from El Rodeo to a private airplane hangar on the outskirts of Caracas. US State Department and Drug Enforcement Administration officials were waiting to help him out of the country, he said.

"You're famous," one of the State Department officials told him, dispelling the impression he had that the outside world didn't know he had been thrown in a Venezuelan prison. His story was already being told without him.

Luckey-Lange eventually ended up in Texas, where he and other Americans held in Venezuela took part in the US government readjustment program known as PISA, or Post Isolation Support Activities. It's typically offered to Americans who have been designated as wrongfully detained to help them acclimate after being imprisoned abroad.

A US official confirmed Luckey-Lange participated in a variation of the program.

Luckey-Lange's health had deteriorated in Venezuela, he said. He had a parasite and his teeth were in bad shape.

Still, outward signs that Luckey-Lange had been through such a harrowing experience were minimal.

Sometimes, in moments alone, it hit him.

"I had a breakdown in the shower the second night [after being released]. That was it," he said.

Luckey-Lange said he wants to travel again. Maybe go from Morrocco all the way down to South Africa.

But not before he reaches as many family members of his former prison mates as he can.

"I had promised all those guys that I was going to help them get out, but I didn't know it was going to be so difficult."

CNN's Uriel Blanco and Mauricio Torres contributed reporting.

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