Pubdate: Wed, 31 Aug 2005
Source: Arizona Daily Star (AZ)
Copyright: 2005 Pulitzer Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.azstarnet.com/star/today/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/23
Author: Arthur H. Rotstein, AP
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

SIXTEEN MORE SOLDIERS, LAW OFFICERS PLEAD GUILTY IN DRUG STING

FBI agents posing as cocaine traffickers have snared another 16 former and 
current soldiers and law enforcement officers in Arizona who agreed to take 
bribes to transport drugs past law enforcement checkpoints.

All 16 agreed to enter guilty pleas before a federal magistrate as 
participants in a bribery and extortion conspiracy, a Justice Department 
official said Wednesday.

In May, another 17 former and current law enforcement officers and soldiers 
pleaded guilty in the same conspiracy, which operated from January 2002 
through March 2004 and involved the transport of about 1,474 pounds of 
cocaine, acting Assistant Attorney General John Richter said in a release.

In addition, several Air Force personnel were charged last spring in 
military court under the same cocaine conspiracy, but their cases have not 
been resolved, a spokeswoman at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base said.

The 16 included two current and three former members of the Arizona Army 
National Guard, seven former corrections officers with the Arizona 
Department of Corrections, two former soldiers, an ex-Marine and a former 
Nogales, Ariz., police officer.

According to court documents, each defendant agreed to plead guilty to one 
count of conspiracy for taking cash bribes totaling more than $75,500 from 
people they thought were drug traffickers to escort at least one shipment 
from locations including Tucson and Nogales to such points as Phoenix and 
Las Vegas.

The defendants wore their official uniforms, had official identification 
and used official vehicles to pass through Border Patrol, Arizona 
Department of Public Safety and Nevada police checkpoints and to prevent 
police stops, searches and seizures where necessary, Richter said.

Justice Department officials said the defendants acted on behalf of what 
they thought was a narcotics trafficking organization involved in moving 
cocaine from Arizona across the Southwest.

The government said some took additional bribes after recruiting other 
officials whom they thought were corrupt.

Officials said the FBI received a tip about an individual and created a 
phony trafficking outfit in December 2001 to lure police and military 
personnel with money to help distribute its cocaine or to let it get 
through checkpoints they were guarding.

In one instance, in August 2002, some of the defendants drove to a remote 
desert airstrip near Benson, Ariz., to meet an aircraft flown by undercover 
FBI agents.

The fully uniformed defendants supervised as some 132 pounds of cocaine 
were unloaded from the plane into their three official government vehicles, 
including two Humvees belonging to the Arizona Air National Guard.

The defendants then drove the contraband to a Phoenix resort, where another 
undercover FBI agent, posing as a drug trafficker, paid them in cash, 
officials said.

The undercover FBI agents used real cocaine throughout the sting operation, 
but it always remained under FBI possession or observation, Justice 
Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said.

The 17 defendants who pleaded guilty earlier in May in U.S. District Court 
accepted cash bribes totaling more than $222,000.

The penalty for a conspiracy conviction could be up to five years in prison 
and a $250,000 fine, though Justice Department prosecutor John W. Scott 
said in May that all those pleading guilty probably would start out facing 
sentences of 34 to 36 months plus the fine. Sentences could be more lenient 
depending on the cooperation of the defendants.
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