Agyeman says he's well aware that a conviction in the pending criminal case could mean his deportation.
"I know and they know that crimes of violence are automatically deportable," he wrote to his court-appointed defense attorney last year.
Peter Scanlon
Emmanuel Agyeman
Barbara Levy and Emmanuel Agyeman at their wedding in 1991.
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But never count him out.
"This is not lost on my accusers and their friends who have good reason because of my so-called litigious troublemaking to see me out of the country," he continued to the attorney. "This is the sole purpose of this charge."
Emmanuel says he will play things out in criminal court, whatever the consequences.
"The authorities have offered to drop my charges if I'll agree to just leave the country," he goes on to the lawyer. "Do they think that I will just give up now and let them have their way? Not likely!"
The court-appointed attorney, Bill Pearlman, knows he has his hands full, both with the case and with his client.
"Emmanuel is extremely bright and obviously fixated on his cases," Pearlman says. "But I don't think he understands the uphill struggle he'll have in a Pinal County trial where the alleged victim is a guard, no matter what really happened. I'd have to think that getting deported may have been the lesser of two evils than spending years in prison. But Emmanuel has his principles."
Agyeman says he feels empowered by a second 9th Circuit Court opinion in his favor -- this one involving one of his civil lawsuits against prison authorities.
Last December, the court unanimously ordered a retrial in Agyeman's suit against CCA officers, whom he accused of beating him in the 1998 incident.
Though a jury in Phoenix quickly had rejected Agyeman's claims in 2003 (he represented himself at trial), the appeals court said a federal magistrate should have appointed him a lawyer.
"His case, in short, was complex," Judge John Noonan wrote. "The circumstances were exceptional. A further fact . . . is the anomaly of incarcerating a person on non-criminal charges and confining him for seven years. Such incarceration may be a cruel necessity of our immigration policy, but if it must be done, the greatest care must be observed in treating the innocent like a dangerous criminal. Is there any warrant for shackling the feet and binding the chest of an innocent detainee?"
Perhaps the last word should go to Bob Cormack, whose late sister Barbara unknowingly became a centerpiece of this twisted saga.
"I honestly don't know if that guy has the right legally to be in this country or not at this point," Cormack says. "But do we really need another con man here?"
