Ex-San Diego CBP officer sentenced to 9 years for allowing drugs through border

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (KESQ) - A former San Diego-based U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer who took bribes and allowed vehicles containing drugs to pass through inspection lanes at the U.S.- Mexico border was sentenced today to nine years in prison.  

Jesse Clark Garcia shared information about when he was working and his lane assignments at the Tecate Port of Entry with a drug trafficking organization, and allowed vehicles carrying fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine to pass undetected into the United States.

Prosecutors say Garcia did so on numerous occasions between 2021 and 2024 and was paid at least $10,000 per car allowed into the U.S.   

Garcia was charged along with another local CBP Officer, Diego Bonillo, who similarly took bribes to permit vehicles to pass through his inspection lanes at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry.

Bonillo was sentenced last year to 15 years in prison.   

Assistant U.S. Attorney Shauna Prewitt said Garcia didn't take money out of financial desperation, but out of "greed," citing luxury purchases of clothes and handbags, multiple vehicles, a San Diego home, his ownership of a horse racing business and a ranch in Mexico that was under construction around
the time of his arrest.  

As the investigation into his activities ratcheted up, he fled the U.S. and was arrested in Mexico about two months later, Prewitt said.   

Garcia's defense attorney, Jennifer Coon, who asked for a prison term of just under five years, said her client is "very ashamed and remorseful" and has taken steps while in custody to better himself.

She also disputed the prosecutor's characterization of him living well above his means, arguing that many of the expensive purchases he made came from money earned through his horse racing business.   

Garcia apologized in court, saying, "I know what I did was really, really wrong. I regret it every day and I'll regret it the rest of my life."   

In a letter written to the sentencing judge, U.S. District Judge Ruth Bermudez Montenegro, Garcia wrote, "After so many years of serving and protecting this great country, I betrayed it ... I have let my entire family and country down."

Montenegro said 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 exact crime that Customs and Border Protection officers are supposed to prevent,'' the judge said.