Border humanitarian worker takes stand in Tucson retrial

TUCSON — Humanitarian aid volunteer Scott Warren testified Tuesday for the second time, as part of a new trial against him in Tucson federal court stemming from his arrest over accusations of harboring two undocumented immigrants in the remote Arizona desert.

Warren, a longtime volunteer with humanitarian aid group No More Deaths, took the stand on the fifth day of the new trial against him before U.S. District Judge Raner Collins in Tucson.

As his testimony wrapped up at the end of the day, Warren’s attorney indicated he would be their final witness, signaling that the defense would give closing arguments on Wednesday morning. Then the case will go to the jury.

The first trial against him in Tucson ended in June with a hung jury. Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona decided to retry the case, but they dropped one of the three charges against him.

Warren faces two felony counts of harboring in the second trial against him. Prosecutors say Warren purposefully helped two undocumented immigrants avoid Border Patrol detection in January 2018, after they crossed the border illegally near Lukeville and ended up at a humanitarian aid station in Ajo known as “the Barn.”

Border agents set up surveillance on the property and arrested Warren and the two migrants, Jose Sacaria-Godoy and Kristian Perez-Villanueva, on Jan. 17, 2018, when they determined the two men were getting ready to leave the Barn.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office announced it would drop the conspiracy charge. The prosecutors had accused Warren of working with an unindicted conspirator to help the two migrants make their way into the United States.

Jurors in Warren’s first trial were not swayed. They were unable to reach a consensus on any of the three counts against the No More Deaths volunteer.

Warren’s testimony was at times highly charged, with prosecuting attorneys trying to undermine his credibility, using his testimony in past hearings and from the first trial in an attempt to contradict him.

In one example, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anna Wright, one of three federal prosecutors on the case, questioned Warren about past testimony he gave about creating a “safe and private space” for anyone at the Barn.

She pushed Warren on whether that statement included any undocumented immigrants found inside the Barn, trying to establish that he had intentionally concealed or shielded Sacaria-Godoy and Perez Villanueva.

Warren talked around the question before finally admitting to having said it when Wright presented him with transcripts of his earlier testimony.

Defense attorney Greg Kuykendall asked Warren about the moments leading up to his January 2018 encounter with Sacaria-Godoy and Perez-Villanueva.

Kuykendall asked whether Warren had intended to hide them from the Border Patrol by housing them at the Barn or by telling them how to evade a nearby checkpoint.

Warren testified that he had told the two men that “we don’t hide people, we can’t hide people, and we can’t protect them from Border Patrol.”

He later added that he had also told No More Deaths volunteers at the Barn the same thing because “we need to work in the spirit of humanitarian aid and in the confines of the law.”

During her questioning, Wright rebutted those assertions, asking Warren about at least one other time when he put himself at legal risk while volunteering with No More Deaths.

“In May 2017, you planned for a small group of volunteers to drive on a restricted road, knowing it would put them at legal risk,” Wright said to Warren.

That incident at the neighboring Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge resulted in citations and the prosecution on misdemeanor charges for the volunteers involved, including Warren. The volunteers had left water and food for migrants.

Warren said the volunteer group made a “mutual decision” and everyone involved understood the situation.

At one point during the questioning, Kuykendall asked Warren about his first encounter with the migrants.

Warren said he had been surprised to see them on Jan. 14, three days before their arrest. The two men had been staying at the Barn as they recovered from blisters and a two-day trek through the Arizona desert, according to his testimony.