A former U.S. Border Patrol Agent was sentenced to 114 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for accepting bribes in return for helping to smuggle illegal drugs into the United States.
Robert Hall, 45, of La Feria,Texas, a former Border Patrol Agent, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein Jr. of the Southern District of Texas, who also ordered Hall to pay a fine in the amount of $20,000. Hall pleaded guilty to one count of bribery on Sept. 14, 2018, which was unsealed Friday.
According to the plea documents, between 2004 and 2014, Hall, working with others including Daniel Hernandez, 46, of Roseville, California, facilitated the trafficking of illegal drugs, including marijuana, into the United States from Mexico on behalf of a drug trafficking organization (DTO). In exchange for cash payments, he provided an individual in the DTO with Customs and Border Protection sensor locations, the locations of unpatrolled roads at or near the U.S.-Mexico border, the number of Border Patrol Agents working in a certain area, keys to unlock Customs and Border Protection locks located on gates to ranch fences along the border and
Customs and Border Protection radios. In total, Hall accepted over $50,000 in cash from the DTO in exchange for using his position as a BPA to enable the DTO’s drug shipments to cross the border into Texas without law enforcement detection.
Daniel Hernandez pleaded guilty Feb. 5 to one count of conspiracy to bribe a public official before U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy K. Johnson in the Southern District of Texas. Sentencing has been scheduled for May 9, before U.S. District Judge Gray Miller, who accepted the plea on Feb. 8.