doophus
09-18-2003, 11:04 AM
Wow, what a story!! Posting link & article since article is headline and apt to be moved shortly.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/orl-locimmigbust18091803sep18,0,7846068.story?coll=orl-home-headlines
Immigration official arrested
By Pamela J. Johnson | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted September 18, 2003
A senior immigration inspector accused of providing his girlfriend and her family with fake passports was in federal custody Wednesday with no bail after agents found two unregistered submachine guns with silencers stashed in his closet.
Hector Aybar-Mendez, 45, who arranged the prosecution of illegal immigrants, was accused of falsifying the passports of his girlfriend, RocioOrtega, her two children and an adult niece, and giving them fake identification numbers so they could obtain Social Security cards and jobs.
On Wednesday, Aybar-Mendez, a 21-year federal employee assigned to Orlando International Airport, pleaded not guilty in federal court in Orlando.
He was arrested Wednesday morning at his Kissimmee home, where he lives with his 17-year-old son. In a hole in the ceiling of his closet, federal agents found the two submachine guns and about 40 passports from various countries, Social Security cards, visas and foreign ID cards -- some counterfeit.
They also found his government-issued revolver and federal employee identification card, items he had reported stolen in August, days after he learned he was being investigated.
Aybar-Mendez had told Orange County sheriff's officials that while working at the firing range, he tripped, bumped his head and passed out. Hours later, he said, a corrections officer awoke him, and he found his revolver and employee identification card missing.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey S. Downing said that the event was staged and that Aybar-Mendez had filed a false police report.
The identification card would allow him to enter a federal building and board an airplane with a weapon, he said. It would also allow him to cross borders.
"Mr. Aybar had taken his credentials and his revolver and was saving them for a rainy day that he knew was coming, but didn't know when," Downing told U.S. Magistrate James G. Glazebrook. "But he knew it was coming soon. . . . He was going to use them and take off."
Glazebrook ruled that Aybar-Mendez posed a serious flight risk and also a danger to the community.
"For a law-enforcement officer to do this is unconscionable," Glazebrook said.
Aybar-Mendez met Ortega, a Colombian citizen, around New Year's 2000, Downing said. About two years later, Aybar-Mendez learned that 60-day visitor visas for Ortega, her children and niece had expired. In early February 2002, while working a shift at the airport, he used another inspector's stamp to certify the passports and wrote in false identification numbers, Downing said.
When Ortega used the passports to attempt to get Social Security cards, officials told her that two of the passports had identification numbers assigned to other immigrants. So she brought the passports back to Aybar-Mendez, who provided new stamps and numbers, the prosecutor said
Ortega and her family are awaiting deportation, officials said. Trial is set to begin for Aybar-Mendez on Nov. 3.
Aybar-Mendez's arrest comes after a major crackdown by federal agents on foreign nationals living illegally in Central Florida. In late August, the Immigration & Naturalization Service announced the arrests of 15 illegal foreign nationals after a sting operation, the seventh such operation in Florida this year.
Pamela J. Johnson can be reached at 407-420-5171 or pjohnson@orlandosentinel.com.
And now, from the Houston Chronicle
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2106255
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/orl-locimmigbust18091803sep18,0,7846068.story?coll=orl-home-headlines
Immigration official arrested
By Pamela J. Johnson | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted September 18, 2003
A senior immigration inspector accused of providing his girlfriend and her family with fake passports was in federal custody Wednesday with no bail after agents found two unregistered submachine guns with silencers stashed in his closet.
Hector Aybar-Mendez, 45, who arranged the prosecution of illegal immigrants, was accused of falsifying the passports of his girlfriend, RocioOrtega, her two children and an adult niece, and giving them fake identification numbers so they could obtain Social Security cards and jobs.
On Wednesday, Aybar-Mendez, a 21-year federal employee assigned to Orlando International Airport, pleaded not guilty in federal court in Orlando.
He was arrested Wednesday morning at his Kissimmee home, where he lives with his 17-year-old son. In a hole in the ceiling of his closet, federal agents found the two submachine guns and about 40 passports from various countries, Social Security cards, visas and foreign ID cards -- some counterfeit.
They also found his government-issued revolver and federal employee identification card, items he had reported stolen in August, days after he learned he was being investigated.
Aybar-Mendez had told Orange County sheriff's officials that while working at the firing range, he tripped, bumped his head and passed out. Hours later, he said, a corrections officer awoke him, and he found his revolver and employee identification card missing.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey S. Downing said that the event was staged and that Aybar-Mendez had filed a false police report.
The identification card would allow him to enter a federal building and board an airplane with a weapon, he said. It would also allow him to cross borders.
"Mr. Aybar had taken his credentials and his revolver and was saving them for a rainy day that he knew was coming, but didn't know when," Downing told U.S. Magistrate James G. Glazebrook. "But he knew it was coming soon. . . . He was going to use them and take off."
Glazebrook ruled that Aybar-Mendez posed a serious flight risk and also a danger to the community.
"For a law-enforcement officer to do this is unconscionable," Glazebrook said.
Aybar-Mendez met Ortega, a Colombian citizen, around New Year's 2000, Downing said. About two years later, Aybar-Mendez learned that 60-day visitor visas for Ortega, her children and niece had expired. In early February 2002, while working a shift at the airport, he used another inspector's stamp to certify the passports and wrote in false identification numbers, Downing said.
When Ortega used the passports to attempt to get Social Security cards, officials told her that two of the passports had identification numbers assigned to other immigrants. So she brought the passports back to Aybar-Mendez, who provided new stamps and numbers, the prosecutor said
Ortega and her family are awaiting deportation, officials said. Trial is set to begin for Aybar-Mendez on Nov. 3.
Aybar-Mendez's arrest comes after a major crackdown by federal agents on foreign nationals living illegally in Central Florida. In late August, the Immigration & Naturalization Service announced the arrests of 15 illegal foreign nationals after a sting operation, the seventh such operation in Florida this year.
Pamela J. Johnson can be reached at 407-420-5171 or pjohnson@orlandosentinel.com.
And now, from the Houston Chronicle
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2106255