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 News from Around the Americas | February 2007 
U.S. Agent Gets 5 Years for Immigrant Smuggling
 BYLINE
| | A truck enters an X-ray detection scanner at Otay Mesa on the Mexican-U.S. border in this undated photo. (Reuters) |
A former U.S. border agent who allowed hundreds of illegal immigrants to cross from Mexico in return for $120,000 in cash was sentenced on Thursday to five years in federal prison.
Michael Gilliland, 44, who worked on the busy Otay Mesa crossing in southern California for 16 years, pleaded guilty last year to bribery and smuggling charges committed over two years.
He admitted sending coded messages to two women who operated independent smuggling rings so they would know which lane he was working during the midnight-to-8 a.m. shift.
The women charged more than $1,000 from each immigrant they smuggled across the border and Gilliland got $1,500 per person. Prosecutors said hundreds of immigrants been let through illegally.
Gilliland, who was also fined $200,000, sobbed and apologized as he was sentenced in U.S. district court in San Diego on Thursday.
"No one has ever been more sorry," defense lawyer Michael Pancer told the court. "He just can't talk about this without weeping."
Pacer added: "I think he just got ground down by the job." |
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