Border officer pleads guilty to corruption charges

— A Customs and Border Protection officer pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to wire fraud and concealing from arrest a fugitive who was a convicted smuggler and the officer’s brother-in-law.

Thomas Paul Silva’s guilty plea came less than a month after he was arrested at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, where he had been assigned to work.

As part of the plea agreement, Silva agreed to resign his position with the agency.

Since 2004, more than 140 federal border officers and agents have faced criminal corruption charges. Most of them took money to allow drugs or undocumented immigrants into the United States.

Chris Matson, director of field operations for Customs and Border Protection in San Diego and Imperial counties, said Tuesday that most officers with the agency are skilled and honest.

“We will not tolerate corruption within our workforce and we will actively ferret out and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law any employees who commit unethical or unlawful acts,” Matson said in a statement.

The 33-year-old Silva is a 10-year veteran of the agency. He was accused of allowing his brother-in-law, Julio Cesar Landaverde Valdez, illegally enter the U.S from Mexico in April.

Authorities said Silva knew that his brother-in-law, who had been convicted of human smuggling charges and then walked away from a federal halfway house, was a fugitive.

At a hearing in September, Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Mazza said that Silva had been the target of a lengthy investigation that began when authorities were tipped that he was allowing people to pass through the entry lane he staffed without properly checking them.

Mazza said the probe also revealed Silva was involved in other criminal activities, including drug smuggling and tax evasion.

Federal prosecutors had not yet charged him with any of those additional crimes, and in exchange for pleading guilty prosecutors said they will not bring those charges against Silva.

The plea agreement said those possible crimes included telling people his lane assignment at the port of entry in July 2011 and not properly checking a vehicle that came through his lane in September 2011.

Silva was also charged with wire fraud against Farmers Insurance for reporting that his truck had been stolen last October. The plea agreement said he drove the truck to Mexico, then reported to the insurance company it had been stolen in downtown San Diego.

He will have to pay the insurance company $7,300 in restitution.

Silva also agreed to forfeit more than $16,000 in cash that investigators found in his Chula Vista home after his arrest.

During the hearing before Magistrate Judge William Gallo, Silva answered a series of routine questions covering the plea. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 14.

The maximum sentence for wire fraud is 20 years in prison, and the concealment charge carries a maximum term of five years. Silva is unlikely, however, to get the maximum sentence.

Gallo also approved a bond package that will allow Silva to leave the downtown federal jail where he has been since his arrest. The $50,000 bond is backed up by homes his parents own.

Silva will be required to wear a GPS bracelet as a condition of his release. (619) 293-1236 Twitter: @gregmoran


