He said he saw his father being pummeled by immigration agents and ran over to stop the beating. Agents accused him of assaulting a federal officer and charged him with a felony that carried a potentially lengthy prison sentence.
A jury on Thursday found the man, Isaac Luis-Amazar, not guilty of the felony charge he faced.
Jurors deliberated a little more than two hours before delivering their verdict in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Sharad Desai in downtown Phoenix.
Luis-Amazar, 31, did not visibly react to his exoneration.
Luis-Amazar, who testified in his own defense, told jurors that he saw an officer raise a fist, seemingly preparing to punch his father. That's when he ran over and yelled at them to stop, he said.
Luis-Amazar said the officer lost his footing and fell on him. He told jurors he never punched the officer.
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No jurors wished to speak to a Republic reporter after they were dismissed. Potential jurors had been questioned about their feelings about the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and people in the country without authorization.
Their verdict came amid a national debate over tactics employed by immigration agents in other states.
Officers shot two men recently during traffic stops in Texas and Maine. Another man, in Florida, was running away from immigration agents and was killed by a tractor-trailer.
Followed from the Home Depot parking lot
The incident involving the father and son in Phoenix took place Jan. 29. ICE agents were driving through the parking lot of a Home Depot, typing license plate numbers into a database to see if the registered owners were potentially in the country illegally, according to court records.
An ICE officer involved in the patrol testified in court that agents were not looking for a specific target in the Home Depot parking lot.
Agents found a truck registered to Luis-Amazar's father, Luis Castro Silas, who the database showed had been removed from the United States in 2012. The reason for the removal was not listed in court records.
Agents followed the truck out of the parking lot and into a neighborhood before activating their lights and sirens and pulling it over, court records said.
Silas ran out of the vehicle, and an officer chased him for about 20 feet before taking him to the ground, records say.
Luis-Amazar then ran to his father.
Testimony differed on what happened next.
The ICE officer, Brandon Lee Easton, said Luis-Amazar shoved him and he fell. He told jurors he was pinned to the ground by Luis-Amazar and punched in the head.
Easton told jurors he was able to see the "anger, hate and exhaustion" in the face of Luis-Amazar.
After he was punched, Easton ran to another ICE officer, Todd Glunt, and told him that he was punched by Luis-Azamar, Glunt said to the jury. Glunt told the jury that Easton's "eyes were big," he looked out of breath, "uncombed" and "pissed off."
Easton said he took photos of scrapes on his legs and knees about three hours after the incident.
Under questioning from the public defender for Luis-Amazar, Debbie Jang, Easton said he did not mention Luis-Amazar's anger or anything about his own injuries in the initial reports he wrote about the incident.
Jang also told jurors there were no medical records about the supposed punch to the head, only Easton's claim of it.
After he was questioned by Jang, Glunt told the jury that his initial report and interview with the FBI did not include details about Easton telling him that he was punched, nor did it mention his physical description.
Luis-Amazar, testifying in his own defense, said that after his dad was tackled by the ICE agent, he saw the agent pull his fist back to punch his dad. He ran over to stop it, he said, getting there in less than 10 seconds.
After the agent fell and Luis-Amazar found himself on top of him, he said he did not try to punch Easton.
Luis-Amazar said he got up and ran away because he wanted to phone his family and tell them what had happened.
Luis-Amazar’s defense attorney, Jang, told jurors that Luis-Amazar was trying to prevent his dad from being punched and kicked.
“He was a shield trying to protect his dad,” Jang said.
Being a shield, she said, "is not an assault.”
Faith Hook, a prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said Luis-Amazar had the option to stop, surrender and comply, but he chose instead to run and charge at the ICE officer.
“The defendant had a choice,” Hook said. “And choices have consequences.”
Luis-Amazar's father, Silas, was swiftly deported to Mexico after the incident.
Even though he was stopped on suspicion of being in the country after a previous removal, he was not charged with that re-entry, a felony charge.
In motions ahead of the trial, Luis-Amazar's attorneys worked on the logistics of getting Silas to testify about the incident, arguing he was a key defense witness.
But, according to court documents, there were shifting answers from the government about whether Silas might be arrested for the felony re-entry charge if he returned.
Silas, according to the court record, eventually declined to testify at his son's trial, even if he were granted full immunity.
Luis-Azamar rejected a plea deal from the government in March, instead opting for the trial.
According to court records, Luis-Azamar came to the United States at age 9. He is the father of three children and worked as a construction laborer, court records say. He had no criminal history as an adult but was arrested once as a juvenile, according to his court testimony.
It was not known whether Luis-Azamar was taken into immigration custody to face deportation proceedings.
