All posts tagged "Homelandsecurity"

A former San Diego-area U.S. Border Patrol agent pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court to bribery and drug charges, admitting that he was paid at least $110,000 to use his position to help smuggle drugs and undocumented immigrants across the border from Mexico. Hector Hernandez, 55, pleaded guilty to one count each of attempted distribution of methamphetamine and receiving a bribe by a public official, according to his plea agreement. As part of his deal, prosecutors dropped a second bribery charge. Hernandez agreed as part of the plea deal to forfeit $110,000 in drug trafficking and briber......

ORLANDO, Fla. — A federal judge sentenced Moad Mohamed Benkabbou to six years in prison for lying to federal agents about his past support for the Islamic State, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida. Mohamed Benkabbou, a 23-year-old from Kissimmee, was indicted by a federal grand jury last year on three counts of false statements to a federal agency related to a terrorism investigation. In a sentencing memo filed in September, prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office said the FBI began investigating Mohamed Benkabbou in summer 2019 for his possible invo......

NEW YORK — An Indian national was hit with murder-for-hire and conspiracy charges in Manhattan on Wednesday for his alleged role in a $100,000 plot to kill a New York City-based leader of the Sikh separatist movement. Nikhil “Nick” Gupta, who the feds say is involved in drugs and weapons trafficking, is accused of working to carry out the orders of an unnamed Indian government official who sought to cut down Gurpatwant Singh Pannun because of his criticism of India’s leadership. Pannun, an immigration attorney and political activist based in the city, is banned from his native country, as is h......

SAN DIEGO — Border agents and customs officers along the California border encountered 72% more migrants in the recently ended fiscal year as compared to two years before, according to recently released federal statistics. The head of Border Patrol in the San Diego area said that marked “a level of activity not seen in over two decades,” with the data backing up the sharp increase in immigrant arrivals that led San Diego County officials in September to declare a humanitarian crisis at the border and request more federal help. During that same three-year period in the region of San Diego and I......

Federal prosecutors are seeking more than a year in prison for a retired Chicago firefighter who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, with a far-right militia group and tried to force his way through a line of police officers to an area where some lawmakers had taken shelter. Joseph Pavlik, 66, of Chicago, “came to the Capitol prepared for violence” and “fanned the flames of the mob” through his actions that day, prosecutors wrote in a memo filed on Friday seeking a sentence of 13 months behind bars. Pavlik, who retired from the Chicago Fire Department in 2013 after a 33-year career as a ......

DETROIT — A west Michigan state legislator gave a tribute Friday to two men who were recently acquitted in the failed plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020. State Rep. Rachelle Smit, a Republican, gave a legislative tribute to twin brothers William and Michael Null, following their mid-September acquittal by an Antrim County jury on charges of allegedly providing support for a terrorist act and a weapon charge in connection to failed plots to kidnap the Democratic governor. Whitmer's office called the tribute "disturbing" and said it would "embolden radical extremists." Tom Siver, Micha......