Federal investigation launched regarding immigrant's death.

[panamania79 2]

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The federal government has launched a criminal investigation into the way Hiu Lui "Jason'' Ng, an immigrant detainee, was handled at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls last summer during the final days of his life.

In documents filed this morning in U.S. District Court, John J. McConnell Jr., a lawyer for the Ng estate, wrote that a prosecutor from the Justice Department and a federal prosecutor from New Hampshire ``informed me that they were conducting a criminal investigation concerning the detention and death of Mr. Ng.''

The details are spelled out in a two-page letter that McConnell wrote to U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith.

McConnell's letter states that federal prosecutors are calling for the release of Roger Gracias Lozano from a jail in York, Pa., to assist them in their criminal investigation.

Gracias Lozano and Ng were cellmates at Wyatt. McConnell has described Gracias Lozano as Ng's ``guardian angel,'' who helped him and witnessed the way corrections officers and nursing staff failed to respond to his pleas for help.

Last month, McConnell appeared before Smith and successfully argued that the court should allow Gracias Lozano to remain in this country so he could be deposed and help them in their wrongful death lawsuit filed against Wyatt, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, (ICE) and others.

A federal prosecutor from Maine who represented ICE countered that Gracias Lozano had been ordered deported for illegally entering thiis country from El Salvador. If released, McConnell said that Gracias Lozano will join his wife and children at their home in Arizona.

Tags Arizona Central Falls RI criminal investigation Donald W. Wyatt Detention