SIXTEEN MORE SOLDIERS, LAW OFFICERS PLEAD GUILTY IN DRUG STING

FBI agents posing as cocaine traffickers have snared another 16 former and
current soldiers and law enforcement officers in Arizona who agreed to take
bribes to transport drugs past law enforcement checkpoints.

All 16 agreed to enter guilty pleas before a federal magistrate as
participants in a bribery and extortion conspiracy, a Justice Department
official said Wednesday.

In May, another 17 former and current law enforcement officers and soldiers
pleaded guilty in the same conspiracy, which operated from January 2002
through March 2004 and involved the transport of about 1,474 pounds of
cocaine, acting Assistant Attorney General John Richter said in a release.

In addition, several Air Force personnel were charged last spring in
military court under the same cocaine conspiracy, but their cases have not
been resolved, a spokeswoman at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base said.

The 16 included two current and three former members of the Arizona Army
National Guard, seven former corrections officers with the Arizona
Department of Corrections, two former soldiers, an ex-Marine and a former
Nogales, Ariz., police officer.

According to court documents, each defendant agreed to plead guilty to one
count of conspiracy for taking cash bribes totaling more than $75,500 from
people they thought were drug traffickers to escort at least one shipment
from locations including Tucson and Nogales to such points as Phoenix and
Las Vegas.

The defendants wore their official uniforms, had official identification
and used official vehicles to pass through Border Patrol, Arizona
Department of Public Safety and Nevada police checkpoints and to prevent
police stops, searches and seizures where necessary, Richter said.

Justice Department officials said the defendants acted on behalf of what
they thought was a narcotics trafficking organization involved in moving
cocaine from Arizona across the Southwest.

The government said some took additional bribes after recruiting other
officials whom they thought were corrupt.

Officials said the FBI received a tip about an individual and created a
phony trafficking outfit in December 2001 to lure police and military
personnel with money to help distribute its cocaine or to let it get
through checkpoints they were guarding.

In one instance, in August 2002, some of the defendants drove to a remote
desert airstrip near Benson, Ariz., to meet an aircraft flown by undercover
FBI agents.

The fully uniformed defendants supervised as some 132 pounds of cocaine
were unloaded from the plane into their three official government vehicles,
including two Humvees belonging to the Arizona Air National Guard.

The defendants then drove the contraband to a Phoenix resort, where another
undercover FBI agent, posing as a drug trafficker, paid them in cash,
officials said.

The undercover FBI agents used real cocaine throughout the sting operation,
but it always remained under FBI possession or observation, Justice
Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said.

The 17 defendants who pleaded guilty earlier in May in U.S. District Court
accepted cash bribes totaling more than $222,000.

The penalty for a conspiracy conviction could be up to five years in prison
and a $250,000 fine, though Justice Department prosecutor John W. Scott
said in May that all those pleading guilty probably would start out facing
sentences of 34 to 36 months plus the fine. Sentences could be more lenient
depending on the cooperation of the defendants.