RETIRED AGENT WHO TOOK BRIBES WILL GET BENEFITS

TUCSON - A former U.S. Border Patrol agent will collect more than $50,000 a
year in retirement benefits despite admitting he sold information to drug
traffickers.

Border Patrol officials allowed agent Charles D. Brown, 56, to retire six
months after he was arrested by FBI agents on corruption charges.

Brown, a 24-year veteran of the department and former supervisor in the
Tucson intelligence unit, pleaded guilty in federal court last week to
three felony counts of accepting a bribe.

He could face 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced
Jan. 14.

INS spokeswoman Virginia Kice told the Tucson Citizen the only way the INS
could stop an agent from collecting a pension would be to fire him or her,
even if the agent was convicted of a felony.

Once an agent retires, there is nothing the agency can do, she said.

"If we have a reasonable belief that someone is going to be charged with a
crime . . . we can place them on an indefinite suspension," Kice said. "If
an investigation is still ongoing, we typically don't proceed to terminate."

Because the agency did not start proceedings to fire Brown, it could not
stop him from retiring.

An FBI investigation found Brown accepted a total of $3,000 in exchange for
information about drug seizures.