San Diego Border Patrol agent sentenced for helping move drugs, migrants across border while on duty (2024)

SAN DIEGO—

Hector Hernandez moved from Mexico to the United States in 1988 and 10 years later became a naturalized citizen. In 2002, he took an oath to protect his new home nation when he became a Border Patrol agent.

But Hernandez, 56, broke that oath last year when he accepted bribes in exchange for helping traffickers move people and drugs across the border.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino sentenced Hernandez to seven years and three months in prison in front of more than two dozen Border Patrol agents there to see their former colleague face justice.

“You chose ... to betray the agency, to betray the nation and to betray the public trust,” Sammartino told the defendant.

Hernandez pleaded guilty in February to bribery and drug charges, admitting that on at least three occasions, he opened a gate in the border fence believing that he was allowing undocumented migrants into the country. On another occasion, he transported drugs inside his agency vehicle while on duty.

Prosecutors alleged in San Diego federal court Friday and in sentencing documents that the corruption went beyond those acts. Assistant U.S. Attorney Shawn Van Demark said an investigation revealed that Hernandez was addicted to cocaine and on multiple occasions while off duty had driven drug loads from San Diego to Los Angeles on behalf of a smuggling organization.

“Perhaps most troubling,” Van Demark wrote in sentencing documents, was that Hernandez once attempted to kidnap an undocumented migrant living in the U.S. He was told the man owed money to the smuggling group and that he should find him, detain him and personally arrange for him to be sent to members of the smuggling organization in Mexico.

Hernandez allegedly went to the man’s home in his Border Patrol vehicle and wearing his uniform. “Fortunately, the undocumented (man) Hernandez was sent to find was not home and Hernandez was unable to complete this task,” Van Demark wrote.

Hernandez came under investigation in April 2023 after an informant told investigators from the Department of Homeland Security, Border Patrol’s parent agency, about a corrupt agent, according to a plea agreement and other documents in the case. Hernandez later admitted to giving members of the criminal organization a tour of the border, where he pointed out weak spots.

As part of a sting operation, Hernandez accepted $5,000 on two occasions for opening a gate in the border fence. He believed undocumented migrants would come through, though none actually did. During a phone call with an undercover agent, Hernandez allegedly asked for the group to send three undocumented people at a time instead of just one so he could receive higher payments.

Later, the undercover agent pitched Hernandez a new scheme that involved moving drugs across the border, according to the plea agreement. Hernandez agreed to a plan in which he would pick up the drugs if they were hidden on the U.S. side of the border fence.

That night while on duty, Hernandez retrieved a duffel bag that investigators had filled with a pound of real methamphetamine, 22 pounds of sham drugs and a tracking device, according to the plea agreement. He drove the bag in his agency vehicle to his Chula Vista home for safekeeping while he went back to work.

Hector Hernandez believed he would be paid $20,000 when he delivered this bag of drugs in May 2023 in Chula Vista. Instead, undercover agents were watching his every move and arrested him.

(via U.S. District Court filing)

When his shift ended in the morning, he retrieved the bag and drove to another location in Chula Vista where he had agreed to meet his supposed accomplice, according to the plea agreement. But when he handed over the bag to the undercover investigator, agents arrested him.

A search of his home turned up $140,000 in cash and 9 grams of cocaine, according to the plea agreement. Hernandez admitted that at least $110,000 was money he made from bribery and drug trafficking — most of which he received before the sting operation.

Defense attorney Gerardo Gonzalez said Hernandez had turned to alcohol to deal with marriage troubles and was dealing with financial struggles, including a desire to help pay the medical bills of his ailing, elderly father in Mexico. During that period, Hernandez ran into an old friend.

“By design, this person got him addicted to cocaine,” Gonzalez said. The attorney wrote in sentencing documents that the friend then introduced Hernandez to people on both sides of the border who wanted him to abuse his position to help them commit crimes.

“I was so desperate,” Hernandez told the judge. He pleaded for leniency while saying he accepted full responsibility for his actions.

“I beg for your mercy,” he said. “Give me one chance, one chance to prove I’ve changed ... I want to pay taxes, I want to work, I want to get my dignity back.”

U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath sat with the Border Patrol agents at Friday’s hearing. Outside of court, she praised the prosecutors and the agents who were there to support them.

“We are grateful to those ... agents for their commitment to public safety and to rooting out corruption as soon as it rears its ugly head in their ranks,” McGrath said.

Gonzalez requested a 41-month sentence for his client, but Sammartino sided with the government’s requested sentence.

“This was a horrific way to end what was otherwise an honorable career,” the judge said.