Thread: IA who lost $59K at airport could get some of it back

Illegal immigrant who lost $59K at airport could get some of it back
By Megan V. Winslow (Contact)
Wednesday, June 25, 2008

STUART — Pedro Mariano Zapeta, an illegal immigrant who lost $59,000 in cash to the U.S. government when he failed to declare it at the airport, has a chance to get some of it back.

The federal appeals court for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta issued an opinion Monday stating a lower court may have granted the government too much of the former Stuart resident's money. Now a judge with the Southern District of Florida federal court must review the case again. A hearing has not yet been scheduled.

Zapeta came to the U.S. in 1996 to work and save money for building a home and a business back in his native Totonicapan, Guatemala. He earned the money over nine years by washing dishes at Stuart restaurants and planned to return home in September 2005 by boarding a plane at the Fort Lauderdale airport with a duffel bag stuffed with cash at his side.

Zapeta, who does not speak English, said he didn't know travelers are required to report any currency over $10,000. In addition to passing two placards stating the federal requirement, he lied to a Transportation Security Administration official about to whom the money belonged and how he came by it, according the government's complaint against him.

Government officials confiscated the money and temporarily detained Zapeta at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement center in Miami.

Under threat of deportation, Zapeta went back to Guatemala in January without any of the money, but he has continued to fight with the help of West Palm Beach attorney Robert Gershman.

In January 2007, U.S. District Judge James Cohn decided the government should keep everything save the $10,000 the law allows travelers to transport.

But government attorneys "led the district court down the wrong path" by stating a $49,000 penalty was fair because the maximum penalty for the offense is $250,000, according to Monday's appeals court opinion. In fact, normal sentencing guidelines dictate the penalty for illegally transporting currency should be somewhere between $500 and $5,000.

The appeals court judges do not suggest what amount the government should receive but state Cohn should consider the matter again using a standard other than the $250,000 maximum penalty.

Gershman said he is pleased with the appeals court's decision and believes his client will be too — when he hears the news. Zapeta's contact with Gershman is limited because he lives in an extremely rural part of Guatemala and doesn't own a phone.
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/jun/25/ ... irport-of/

1) being here for 9 years and still not speaking English does not excuse him from following the law
2) what about the penalty for lying to a federal officer? That landed Martha Stewart in jail. Once again, IAs don't have to follow the same laws as the rest of us?