It was Mendez; the way he talked about "sacrifices you'll never know" tells us it's really him. Plus they'd have no reason to use the guy's name if it wasn't him anyway. They gave him Mendez 1) Because he's legit and therefore won;t have any holes in his story and 2) so they could give him the bug kahuna in order for him to wrap up his story and get him out of their hair more quickly. They want him out, so they feed him a big bone to distract him and satisfy him, like a good dog.