
Under a plea deal, two-time illegal border-crosser Gilberto Garcia Rodriguez faces a two-year prison sentence and then “a virtual certainty” of being deported back to Mexico.
Such matters are the bread-and-butter of the San Diego-based U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California
But not so typical for the assistant U.S. attorney who took over the case last week — Emily Winslow Allen.
Allen was part of a team that won a guilty plea by former Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, who avoided prison for corruption after being pardoned by President Trump.
Now it’s Allen who may be in the cross hairs.
Over the past three years, Allen helped prosecute at least 27 January 6 Capitol riot defendants, according to court records.

Among them was Michael Sparks of Kentucky, the first rioter to enter the U.S. Capitol, and Howard Charles Richardson of Pennsylvania, who pleaded guilty to using a flagpole to assault a police officer. All are now pardoned.
Amid a purge of FBI officials and inspectors general, some worry that anyone involved with charging J6 felons are themselves at risk of firing or demotion, or worse.
“The mass firing of Special Counsel [Jack] Smith’s team has gotten significant attention, and deservedly so, for the message it sends to any [Justice Department] employee thinking of investigating or prosecuting misconduct involving the president,” wrote former Senate investigator Sara Zdeb.
Allen didn’t respond to a request for comment, but her retired colleague, Phillip Halpern, expressed fears for her and the San Diego office, which employs about 270 assistant U.S. attorneys and staff.
“Anybody involved in an area that Trump has concerns with is in trouble,” Halpern told Times of San Diego. “If I was still [in] government, I’d be worried about any prosecution with a person who is pardoned.”
Halpern prosecuted disgraced congressman Hunter.
On Jan. 6 — two weeks before Trump’s second inauguration — a news release crowed: “San Diego Trial Team Plays Critical Role in Landmark DOJ Effort to Prosecute January 6 Defendants.”
The San Diego DOJ release didn’t name names.
But it said five prosecutors and an intelligence analyst from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego handled more than 60 cases — including nine trials.
“Each San Diego prosecutor volunteered to join DOJ’s nationwide team and did so with the full support of the United States Attorney’s Office” led by Tara K. McGrath, the release said.
Halpern, in a phone interview Tuesday, told me that he’s also worried about his former colleagues being induced to take a federal buyout.
Media reports said 20,000 federal employees have opted to retire early and be paid through September 30. Government workers have a deadline of Thursday to apply.
Halpern says he’s spoken to current and former San Diego DOJ staffers and encountered “surprise, confusion and outrage” over the now-infamous “Fork in the Road” email from the Office of Personnel Management.
“This is causing much consternation, head-scratching and reflection,” he said, as well as outrage over “demands for loyalty.”
“I mean every (assistant U.S. attorney) swears an oath of loyalty to the Constitution, of course,” said Halpern, who won the DOJ’s Director’s Award seven times. “But given this particular administration, their request for people to be loyal, and reliable and trustworthy — above any type of competence — is very frightening.”
Halpern said the buyout efforts — which haven’t been authorized by Congress — aren’t constitutional.
“Certainly, if somebody is fired after they don’t resign, they’re going to be testing” the firing in court, he said.
Halpern also slams the OPM’s claim that DOJ employees should go from “low productive government jobs” to “higher productivity, private sector” work.
“Yeah, that’s really offensive,” he said.
Much of the DOJ’s work, he said, is “many times as hard or harder than the private sector … and they do it for a lot less because they believe in what they’re doing. So this is really a slap in the face.”
Halpern fears the fallout of DOJ offices being gutted.
“There’ll be less protection for the people of the United States,” he said. “I particularly would be concerned about white collar crime, political corruption.”
But acknowledging that elections have consequences, Halpern says a a new top attorney here — after the expected exit of current U.S. Attorney McGrath — could change its focus to more immigration and drug cases.
“I have no issues with that,” he said. “I mean, I personally wouldn’t like it, but it’s constitutional, it’s appropriate. It happens with every administration.”
Meanwhile, Halpern has his own health to worry about.
He’s been open about his battle with a rare cancer of the blood and bone marrow called JAK2 Mutated Unclassified Myeloproliferative Neoplasm / Myelodysplastic syndrome (abbreviated as “U-MPN/MDS“). He posts updates on his CaringBridge page.
After a first stem cell transplant in Boston, he made it six months before a relapse.
“And then I had to do a year of chemo,” he told me. “And then I did a another stem cell transplant and I’m now about three months post that one.
“So I’m still alive, but I’m not well.”