By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
Indicted FBI agent W. Joseph Astarita has exhausted his personal savings to pay for his own forensic experts and has sought some federal funds to cover additional expenses, his attorney said in court, The Oregonian newspaper reports.
On Monday, Astarita sat in a U.S. District Court hearing in Portland listening to government experts testify how they identified him as the one who fired twice at the truck of Oregon occupation spokesman Robert “LaVoy” Finicum and then tried to cover it up.
Attorneys for Astarita, who is charged with repeatedly lying to state and federal investigators about firing two shots at Tinicum’s truck in 2016, claim the government has no concrete evidence and instead is relying on questionable “so-called experts.”
One of his defense attorneys, Washington, D.C.-based lawyer Robert Cary, argued that the FBI’s fuzzy aerial video proves nothing and that the government is using a faulty synchronization of videos created by someone who lacks expertise, The Oregonian reports.
The hearing is expected to last multiple days.
