A teary homecoming

They’d just gotten off the plane from Phoenix to El Paso — a 45-minute flight of rollicking, delirious laughter and playful taunts. And they’d had their tearful greetings at the prison gate as Ignacio Ramos left solitary confinement behind.

As they descended the airport escalator, a mob of cheering supporters and jostling reporters waited for them. Ramos was with wife Monica, attorney David Botsford and Tara Setmayer, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s spokeswoman, who fought for 2 1/2 years to free the former Border Patrol agent convicted along with partner Jose Compean of shooting a drug smuggler and trying to cover it up in a case that drew national attention.

“There was this uproarious applause, yelling and cameras in our faces, but the first thing he did was hug his three children. That’s what made it real for me finally,” Setmayer said.

Even after President Bush commuted the sentences of Ramos and Compean on his last day in office, Setmayer knew the day would come soon when she’d see them walk free. The question was when.

They were due to be released March 20, but Setmayer and other boosters battled to get them released sooner. They got their wish Tuesday when Ramos, who was serving his time in Phoenix, and Compean, who was in an Ohio prison, were ordered to serve the end of their terms in home confinement.

“For us, we’re not bureaucrats. We don’t understand why it takes so long” to release someone from prison, Setmayer said.

“I found out last weekend ... the furlough papers were finalized,” Setmayer said. Monica Ramos, the only other person outside the prison system who knew, called Setmayer. They were sworn to secrecy because prison officials wanted to avoid the typical media stampede.

Setmayer became a close friend of the Ramos family after his beat-down in a Mississippi prison before he was transferred to Phoenix. She visited “Nacho” there with former Rep. Tom Tancredo.

“That day solidified it for me. It was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do — to walk out of that prison leaving Ramos behind. My friends like to joke I’m a ‘Jersey girl,’ I’m tough as nails, but that day I cried like a baby all the way to the airport,” Setmayer said.

“I promised Nacho Ramos that day that I would see him walk out of a federal penitentiary,” Setmayer said.

She almost didn’t get that chance Tuesday.

Ramos gave prison officials a list of five people he wanted there to greet him at the gate. They denied everyone but Monica and Botsford.

“I said, ‘We’ll see about that,’” Setmayer said.

She had pestered the federal Bureau of Prisons liaison so often as she advocated for the agents that they developed what she laughingly calls a “love-hate relationship.”

“So I called my trusty Bureau of Prisons liaison and said, ‘So I hear I’ve been denied access,’ ” she said. “He said, ‘I knew I was going to get this call today. In fact, my superior and I were talking about this very thing. I told him if I know Tara Setmayer she’s not going to get out of that car [at a security checkpoint], so we’re trying to figure out how to avoid that.’”

Finally, after prolonged negotiations that the liaison compared to congressional tangling over the stimulus bill, Setmayer made the list of first-greeters.

“The DC office knew what was good for them,” she said, chuckling. “I promised Nacho I would be there two years ago and I wasn’t going to break that promise.”

Monica and Tara stayed at a hotel about five minutes away from the prison and picked out some new clothes for Ramos the night before. They were so giddy with expectations they had a tough time winding down. “I didn’t get to sleep until 2:30 a.m. and then I set three alarms and asked for a wake-up call to make sure.”

They got up at 6 a.m., Setmayer put the finishing touches on the news release announcing the news and had it ready to send when it was allowed. They drove in separate cars just in case there was a mix-up, and the guards hassled Setmayer at the gate, but everything went smoothly.

“Within three minutes we saw him processed through the gate,” she said. He was wearing his prison-issued faded jeans with no belt and a plain white T-shirt. Then he changed into the khaki pants, black belt, black Docker shoes, striped, button-down Polo shirt and black sport-coat jacket that Monica and Setmayer had picked out for him.

“That was important. We thought he should look good. He needed to walk out of there with his head held high,” Setmayer said. “When he walked through those doors he was smiling ear to ear. He walked up to Monica, gave her a big hug and said, ‘I love you,’ and she said, ‘I love you, too.’ He hugged David Botsford and then he saw me, said, ‘Tara,’ gave me a big hug and I said, ‘I kept my promise, Nacho.’ ‘You sure did,’ he said. And then we started to cry. Everyone cried tears of joy.”

Much of the rest of their way home was like that — smiles, laughs, tears as they celebrated and Monica, Setmayer and Botsford did interviews. Ramos and Compean may not talk to reporters until their sentences end in March.

Setmayer doesn’t have as much contact with Compean’s family as they’ve preferred to take a more low-key approach throughout, but she said Ramos and Botsford plan to keep up the legal fight to clear his name for as long as they can.

“For me, the gravity of what we accomplished didn’t hit me until yesterday,” Setmayer said. “It’s nothing short of amazing. We got Ramos and Compean commuted and Scooter Libby wasn’t pardoned? I mean, you’ve got to be kidding me. We bucked the president, the Mexican government ... We were able to break through all that to save these two men.”

City Editor PAUL ANDERSON may be reached at (714) 966-4633 or at paul.anderson@latimes.com.