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Two former Border Patrol agents plead guilty to bribery
| Friday, Jul 7 2006 5:15 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Jul 7 2006 5:15 PM
Two former Border Patrol agents pleaded guilty Friday to accepting nearly $200,000 in bribes for releasing immigrant smugglers and illegal immigrants from federal custody.
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Mario Alvarez and Samuel McClaren each face up to 18 years in prison when they are sentenced Sept. 29, said U.S. District Judge John Houston. Each pleaded guilty to one count of bribery and one count of filing a false tax return.
Alvarez, 45, admitted taking $100,300 from a smuggling organization from June 2003 to March 2006 and underreporting his taxable income as $75,044 in 2004.
McClaren, 44, admitted taking $85,940 from the same smuggling organization from June 2003 to March 2006 and underreporting his taxable income as $45,519 in 2004.
The former agents showed no emotion and stood quietly as Houston read the charges against them. They did not make any statements beyond acknowledging guilt.
Alvarez, who is free on bond, wore a suit and left the courtroom with supporters. McClaren, who wore a beige prison jumpsuit, was escorted to federal jail. Defense attorney Martin Molina said McClaren would post bail soon.
"These are Border Patrol agents who smuggled illegal aliens," said U.S. Attorney Carol Lam. "It doesn't get much worse than that."
According to the indictment, the two agents took nearly $300,000 in cash bribes while in the Border Patrol's El Centro sector, which covers the eastern half of California's border with Mexico.
They were assigned to a joint effort between the Border Patrol and Mexico's attorney general's office under which smugglers arrested in the United States are deported to Mexico for prosecution. Alvarez worked on the effort from November 2002 to the end of last year; McClaren worked on it from July 2003 through last year.
The joint effort, then in a testing phase, has been touted by federal officials in recent months. Darryl Griffen, who heads the Border Patrol's San Diego sector, told a congressional panel in San Diego this week that the 82 suspected smugglers in the region were returned to Mexico for prosecution by Mexican authorities since March 2005.
"That has value to us as a country and to everything we do along the border," Griffen told the House International Relations subcommittee on International Terrorism.
The complaint said Alvarez and McClaren brought two smugglers across the border into the United States in a government vehicle in September 2004 and released one of them from federal custody three months later in exchange for $10,000.
In October 2005, according to the complaint, the two agents dropped off an illegal immigrant who was to be deported to Mexico at a Wal-Mart parking lot for $6,000.