A Mesa County sheriff’s deputy resigned Tuesday, almost three months after he was accused of violating state law by sharing information with federal officials that led to a Utah college student’s immigration arrest, according to court records.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser on Thursday dropped the lawsuit he filed against Investigator Alexander Zwinck over the incident because of the deputy’s resignation, according to court records. Weiser agreed to dismiss the case because the law no longer applies to Zwinck after his resignation, according to a motion filed last week.
A larger investigation into whether other state law enforcement officers in the region collaborated with federal officials in a Signal group chat for the purposes of federal immigration enforcement will continue, said Lawrence Pacheco, spokesman for the attorney general’s office.
“Because the laws he is accused of violating apply only to state and local employees, the attorney general’s office is dismissing the lawsuit against Mr. Zwinck but retaining the right to re-file the case if Mr. Zwinck becomes a state or local employee in the future,” Pacheco said.
Weiser alleged in the lawsuit that Zwinck knowingly assisted in federal immigration enforcement by sharing information about 19-year-old Caroline Dias Goncalves in the Signal group chat during a June 5 traffic stop on Interstate 70 near Loma.
Colorado law prohibits local law enforcement officers from carrying out civil immigration enforcement and largely blocks local police agencies from working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The deputy purposely stalled Dias Goncalves so federal immigration officers could get into position to arrest her, and passed on details about the make and model of her car, her license plate, and her direction and timing of travel to the federal officers, knowing it would be used for immigration enforcement, Weiser said.
Zwinck pulled Dias Goncalves over because she was following a semitrailer too closely. At about 1:40 p.m., he shared a picture of her driver’s license in the Signal group chat so that federal agents could run her information through a number of databases that are only accessible to them, Weiser alleged in the lawsuit.
Zwinck questioned Dias Goncalves about her accent and where she was from — she said she was born in Brazil. He shared his location with the federal agents, who responded that they were en route. He kept Dias Goncalves for about 15 minutes, then let her go with a warning at about 1:55 p.m.
The federal agents then arrested her on immigration grounds. Dias Goncalves, who attends the University of Utah, came to the U.S. from Brazil with her family when she was 7 and overstayed a tourist visa. She has a pending asylum application, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
The Signal group chat included a mix of local and federal officers and was used for regional drug-smuggling enforcement, according to the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office.
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Shelly Bradbury
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