El Paso Border Patrol agent pleads guilty to immigrant smuggling
Times staff report
Article Launched: 07/09/2008 01:23:44 PM MDT


U.S. Border Patrol agent Jesus Miguel Huizar faces five years in federal prison after pleading guilty Wednesday morning to conspiracy to smuggle, transport and harbor undocumented immigrants and conspiracy to commit money laundering, United States Attorney Johnny Sutton announced.
Appearing before United States District Judge David Briones, Huizar admitted that from January 2005 to present he conspired to smuggle over 100 undocumented immigrants into the United States from Mexico. Specifically, Huizar was paid a portion of the smuggling fees, approximately $350 per person, to facilitate the transportation of undocumented immigrants through the interior Border Patrol checkpoints in New Mexico, Sutton said in a news release

Huizar agreed to forfeit to the government a house he owned at 9072 Geranium in El Paso, used by the organization as a safe house. He also agreed to pay a monetary judgement in the amount of $500,000.

A trial date for Huizar's co-defendants - El Paso resident Rosa Isela Escajeda, 46, and Chihuahua, Mexico residents Emeterio Sigala-Favela, 37, and Luis Carlos Chacon-Rubio, 32 - has yet to be scheduled. If convicted, each faces up to ten years in federal prison.
http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_9829118