A former US Customs and Border Protection officer in San Diego was sentenced to nine years in prison today for accepting bribes and allowing trucks transporting drugs to pass through inspection lanes at the US-Mexico border.
Jesse Clark Garcia exchanged information about his work schedule and lane allocations at the Tecate Port of Entry with a drug trafficking group, allowing trucks transporting fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine to enter the United States unnoticed.
Prosecutors allege Garcia received at least $10,000 for each automobile allowed into the US between 2021 and 2024. was charged alongside another local CBP officer, Diego Bonillo, who also accepted bribes to allow vehicles through his inspection lanes at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry.
Last year, Bonillo was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
Assistant US Attorney Shauna Prewitt stated that Garcia did not take money out of financial desperation, but rather out of “greed,” citing luxury purchases of clothing and handbags, multiple vehicles, a San Diego home, ownership of a horse racing business, and a ranch in Mexico that was under construction at the time of his arrest.
As the inquiry into his activities intensified, he fled the United States and was apprehended in Mexico approximately two months later, Prewitt said.
Garcia’s defense counsel, Jennifer Coon, who sought a jail sentence of just under five years, stated that her client is “very ashamed and remorseful” and has taken steps to improve himself while in custody.
She also contested the prosecutor’s assertion that he lived well beyond his means, claiming that many of his pricey purchases were made with money generated from his horse racing business.
Garcia apologized in court, saying, “I realize what I did was really wrong. I regret it every day, and I will for the rest of my life.
In a letter to the sentencing judge, U.S. District Judge Ruth Bermudez Montenegro, Garcia stated, “After so many years of serving and protecting this great country, I betrayed it… I have let my entire family and country down.”
Montenegro stated that “while there are many mitigating factors in Mr. Garcia’s favor,” such as his service in the U.S. Army and strong family support, she agreed with the prosecution’s recommended sentence of 12 years.” “He facilitated the very crime that Customs and Border Protection officers are supposed to prevent,” the judge stated.
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