Ex-Homeland Security Investigator Draws 3 Years in Prison for Falsifying Records

The onetime head of the Homeland Security Department inspector general’s team in Texas was sentenced to 37 months in prison on Monday for conspiring with other special agents to falsify records and hinder his office’s criminal probes, the Justice Department announced.

Former DHS IG Special-Agent-in-Charge Eugenio Pedraza, 50, of McAllen, Texas, was ordered to prison by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen of the Southern District of Texas. Pedraza was found guilty after a four-day trial last March.

“While leading an office responsible for investigating misconduct at other government agencies, Pedraza sought to impede and obstruct the investigation of his own office,” said Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell, in a Justice release. “Pedraza’s criminal conduct resulted in the premature closing of criminal cases without resolution, potentially endangering our national security and allowing others to escape justice. We will root out and prosecute corruption wherever it may be found, including within the ranks of federal law enforcement.”

Pedraza headed DHS-OIG’s McAllen Field Office from January 2009 to January 2012.

His scheme involved falsifying and signing “investigative documents to make it appear that criminal investigations were being conducted in a timely fashion and in accordance with DHS-OIG standard operating procedures,” Justice said.

Pedraza was also found to have improperly supervised agents investigating such cases as a probe of whether a Customs and Border Protection officer was helping with illegal smuggling of undocumented aliens and narcotics. Several cases were shut down after Pedraza and his aides backdated false memoranda to make it appear as certain agents had participated in an investigation when they had not.

One of the other special agents pleaded guilty. A Homeland Security Department IG spokesman declined comment.

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