US prosecutors announced in court that they would retry a border activist accused of aiding migrants, after a jury last month was unable to reach a verdict at his trial in Arizona.
No More Deaths, the Arizona-based humanitarian group that the defendant, Scott Warren, works with, disclosed the development Tuesday on Twitter. The group says the government dropped a conspiracy charge and will retry Warren on two counts of harboring migrants.
Warren, a 36-year-old college geography instructor, was arrested in January 2018 on suspicion of supplying food, water and clean clothes to two undocumented migrants. He was initially charged with conspiracy to transport and harbor migrants and faced up to 20 years in prison.
During the trial in June, defense attorneys argued Warren was just being kind by giving water, food and lodging to the migrants.
Prosecutors maintained the men were not in distress and Warren helped them at a property used for aiding migrants near the Mexico border.
Warren is one of nine members of No More Deaths who have been charged with crimes related to their work, but he is the only one to have faced felony charges.
The charges against the volunteers came a week after No More Deaths published a report accusing border patrol agents of condemning migrants to death by sabotaging water containers and other supplies. It also accused agents of harassing volunteers in the field. Border patrol denies the charges.
More details soon …
