Jury Finds U.S. Customs Agent Guilty of Corruption

A federal court jury Wednesday convicted a veteran U.S. Customs investigator of official corruption in a case tied to allegations of drug smuggling by high-ranking federal agents in the nation’s busiest drug corridors.

Richard P. Sullivan of Bonita was found guilty of taking payoffs, lying to federal investigators and falsifying credit applications, all to further a scheme prosecutors say was hatched by other corrupt Customs officials to launder their proceeds from marijuana smuggling.

Sullivan, a 10-year veteran of the Customs Service and a former Border Patrol officer, faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. U.S. District Judge Leland C. Nielsen, who presided at Sullivan’s 2 1/2-week trial, said Wednesday that he intends to order prison time for the suspended agent when Sullivan is sentenced Dec. 15.

The jury acquitted Sullivan on charges of conspiring to import marijuana and on two counts of lying to an investigating agent. Jurors did not reach a verdict on a charge that Sullivan failed to file a required federal currency transaction report.

Sullivan testified for parts of two days in a defense aimed at demonstrating that he legitimately obtained the funds to build his dream house in an expensive Bonita subdivision and to purchase a nearby lot for Charles Jordan, the now-suspended Customs station chief in Key Largo, Fla. In the course of his testimony, Sullivan admitted lying to an agent investigating the smuggling ring.

The verdicts, however, indicated that jurors were not swayed by defense attorney Sheldon Sherman’s argument that Sullivan may have been “stupid” but was not corrupt.

Nielsen said Wednesday that he was not convinced, either.

“I think he perjured himself on the stand without question,” he said of Sullivan’s testimony.

Sherman said the guilty verdicts will be appealed.

Prosecutors have not fared as well in other cases linked to an ongoing investigation of alleged corruption by Customs officials in Florida, Louisiana and San Diego.

In February, Jordan was acquitted by a New Orleans jury on charges stemming from a scheme to smuggle marijuana into Louisiana from South America. He remains suspended from duty and under investigation.

The same jury convicted the former chiefs of marine and land patrol for the Customs Service’s southeast sector on smuggling charges. But the guilty verdicts were set aside when two jurors recanted their votes. The men will be retried in New Orleans next month.

Other Customs officials in South Florida also remain under investigation in what agency officials have termed the most serious corruption probe in the recent history of the Customs Service.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Philip L.B. Halpern, who prosecuted the Sullivan case, said the guilty verdicts in San Diego sent a message to federal drug agents across the country.

“The government will tolerate no dereliction of duty on the part of its agents,” Halpern said. “And no matter how great the temptation may be, they should be aware that the government is going to use all the resources at its disposal to punish not only those trafficking in drugs, but those guilty of allowing them to traffic in drugs.”

Jurors refused to convict Sullivan on a charge that he conspired with Jordan, two convicted drug traffickers-turned-informants and his brother, Robert Sullivan--a fugitive ex-biker--to fly a load of 15,000 pounds of marijuana into the San Diego area from Colombia.

But the jury found him guilty of official corruption by accepting payoffs to aid and abet the commission of crimes. And the jurors convicted him on charges related to efforts to cover up the source of hundred of thousands of dollars invested in his house and Jordan’s lot in Bonita.

After the verdict was announced, Halpern asked Nielsen to immediately revoke Sullivan’s $100,000 bond and order him jailed. Citing Sullivan’s status as a former federal agent, however, Nielsen allowed him to remain free until sentencing. The judge said he wanted a chance to arrange for a safe setting for Sullivan’s incarceration.

Sullivan, a Customs agent since 1978, had been honored for his work in the agency’s airborne surveillance branch and had investigated the importation of counterfeit designer products.