A former customs officer in Nogales was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison after admitting to taking a $6,000 bribe to smuggle someone into the United States.
Jose Rosalio Fuentes, 58, was working as a canine officer for Customs and Border Protection in February 2018 when he started talking with an unidentified person about helping smuggle Juan Carlos Gonzalez Villa across the border, according to a sentencing memo filed by federal prosecutors Ryan Ellersick and Gordon Davenport.
Gonzalez was a convicted felon who had been deported and still had outstanding warrants, prosecutors wrote.
Fuentes sent a text in Spanish saying Gonzalez could go to prison if he turned himself in at the border. Fuentes then texted “(W)hy don’t you wait until I am at the port, what do you think about that?” He then texted: “Because I was going to tell you, if he wants to go jail, he will be in jail for five years. And, or he can wait for when I’m there and then well...he passes, right?”
While discussing the $6,000 bribe, Fuentes texted “I would like to see if it could be six...at least to pay for this month’s utilities because I’m also behind. Please if you could make it six, thanks. Bye.” Fuentes later added that “it’ll be worth it,” according to prosecutors.
When the time came to smuggle Gonzalez across the border on Feb. 10, 2018, Fuentes left his post and went to the pedestrian inspection lane to relieve another officer.
Shortly after, the unnamed person and Gonzalez entered the port of entry and Fuentes waved them over to his line. Video footage showed Fuentes only scanned one identification card, but let both Gonzalez and the unnamed person across the border, prosecutors wrote.
Migrants and human rights advocates are hopeful that U.S. immigration policies will change once construction of Donald Trump's border wall stops. On Wednesday President Joe Biden's first official act as President will be to sign an executive to immediately end the national emergency that Donald Trump declared on the border in February 2018 to divert billions of dollars from the Defense Department to wall construction.
Prosecutors did not identify the person on the other end of the text messages, but defense lawyer Joshua Hamilton wrote in a court document that the unnamed individual was another CBP officer who wanted Fuentes’ help in smuggling her brother across the border.
In a separate prosecution, Gonzalez pleaded guilty to his role in the bribery scheme. He told prosecutors he crossed the border at the Mariposa Port of Entry in Nogales on Feb. 10, 2018, after arranging to bribe a CBP officer, according to his plea agreement. He gave the CBP officer an identification card that belonged to someone he did not know. The officer pretended to scan the card and then allowed Gonzalez to enter the United States.
Two days later, Gonzalez withdrew $37,500 from a bank and met the officer at a supermarket in Rio Rico, where he gave the officer $6,000, according to his plea agreement. Gonzalez was sentenced to 25 months in prison for giving a bribe to a public official.
The bribery scheme was “wholly uncharacteristic for Mr. Fuentes,” Hamilton wrote. Fuentes had never been arrested before the bribery offense and does not have any issues with substance abuse, he said. Fuentes started working at CBP in 1989 and now works at a warehouse in Tucson.
Fuentes pleaded guilty to a bribery charge. At his Jan. 13 sentencing in Tucson’s federal court, Judge Rosemary Marquez ordered him to pay a $6,000 fine and to be on supervised release for three years after his prison term.
Fuentes also is prohibited from holding a position of trust with the United States in the future, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona.
Prosecutors said the bribe in February 2018 was not an isolated incident for Fuentes. They said he smuggled other people across the border in exchange for payments of $4,000.
