News Releases and Statements

David P. Harlan, pleaded guilty in January 2014 to the charge first lodged in 2010. Following a lead from German law enforcement, investigators obtained a search warrant in March 2010. The search of Harlan's home turned up more than 5,300 images and nearly 200 videos of child pornography on 10 computers and other digital storage media.

Jose Cruz Romero-Flores, 39, Felix Rios-Martinez, 48, and Raul Romero-Castillo, 31, all from Lakewood, were sentenced to five years in state prison for conspiracy to facilitate human trafficking. Santos Lazaero Florez-Cruz, 59, of Union City and Haliro Bueno, 22, of Lakewood, were sentenced to three years for promoting prostitution.

Francisco Soares, 44, of Foxborough and Paul Stein, 58, of Mashpee, were charged with conspiracy to impersonate a federal officer and falsely impersonating a federal agent.

Juan Carlos Hernandez, 44, of El Paso, Texas, faces 10 years in federal prison, according to the terms of his plea agreement. His prison sentence is to be followed by a term of supervised release to be determined by the court. Hernandez also will be required to register as a sex offender.

Antonio Govea Figueroa, 43, of Nederland, Texas, pleaded guilty Aug. 13 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Keith F. Giblin after being charged with wire fraud.

Ramon Miguel Cerros-Cruz, 24, of Hyattsville, was sentenced after pleading guilty to the charge.

Christopher L. Modglin, 45, of Stotts City, Missouri, pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to manufacture child pornography.

The remaining two defendants of 36 accused in the Southern District of Texas of racketeering activities as part of their roles with the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT) have pleaded guilty, capping a six-year sweeping effort that led to 73 convictions across five federal districts and the decimation of the gang's leadership and violent members and associates.

Gregory Bogomol, 38, of Fort Worth, was arrested in May on a related federal criminal complaint and has been in custody since that time. He was employed by the Denton (Texas) Independent School District as a teacher at Denton High School. He resigned from that position the week before his arrest.

A federal grand jury indicted James T. McBride, of Columbus, Ohio, May 14 of one count of conspiracy, one count of causing the impersonation of a diplomat and four counts of producing false identification documents.

Apolinar Ortiz Islas, aka Polo, 44, a citizen of Mexico, illegally present in the United States, was sentenced to 14 years and two months imprisonment after being found guilty following a 3-day trial in October 2013.

Kirk Simmons, 60, of Newark, Delaware, was also ordered to serve five years of supervised release following his prison sentence and register as a sex offender.

Shahid Hassan Muslim, aka Sharp, faces a statutory maximum sentence of life in prison. His conviction follows an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), with the assistance from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Police Department.

Olayinka Ilumsa Sunmola, 31, of Lagos, Nigeria, was arrested Aug. 9 in connection with a recently unsealed indictment returned by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Illinois. Sunmola was arrested by London Metropolitan Police at Heathrow Airport as he was about to board a British Airways flight bound for Johannesburg, South Africa, where he currently resides and conducts his activities.

According to the indictments, from at least July 2008 to April 2014, conspirators in the United States and Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, sold the identities of Puerto Rican U.S. citizens, corresponding Social Security cards, Puerto Rico birth certificates and other identification documents to illegal aliens and others residing in the United States.

Jesse William Korff, 19, of LaBelle, Florida, pleaded guilty Tuesday to five counts of developing, producing, transferring and possessing toxins, five counts of smuggling toxins and one count of conspiring to kill a person in a foreign country.

Eric Lee Bederson, 37, an inmate at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, California, pleaded guilty before U.S. Chief District Judge Greg Kays to two counts of distributing child pornography.

Esteban Villegas-Gamez, 39, formerly of Bellevue admitted in a May plea agreement to selling methamphetamine and firearms to a confidential informant working with investigators. Court records state Villegas-Gamez made multiple illegal sales between November 2013 and January 2014. He admitted the combined total of the methamphetamine he sold the informant during the different transactions was in excess of 50 grams.

The HSI investigation revealed that Mahmoud Bazzi, 71, who is a native and citizen of Lebanon, repeatedly provided false and misleading testimony and submissions that were critical to his obtaining status in the United States.

Huntsville-based System Dynamics International (SDI), which provides high technology engineering services to American and Australian militaries, became the latest employer to be certified by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) employment compliance program called IMAGE at a ceremony Monday.

John Mordecai Scott, 58, of Lake Forest, was taken into custody Friday by HSI special agents and Orange County sheriff's deputies on a state charge of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child. Specifically, Scott is suspected of showing and taking lewd photographs of a minor female victim at his residence and place of employment.

ICE's top 5 news stories for the week ending Aug. 8, 2014

Steven Christopher Montes, 25, of Visalia, was taken into custody Friday by investigators from the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Montes is charged with multiple counts of producing and possessing child pornography.

According to court documents, Jose Antonio Hernandez, 42, pleaded guilty May 19 to multiple federal courts related to copyright infringement and trafficking in counterfeit labels. The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California.

Aaron Lewis Gaudinier, 50, of Madera, appeared in federal court Monday. Upon completion of the prison term, U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. O'Neill ordered that Gaudinier be subject to 15 years of supervised release.