A former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI) Special Agent was sentenced today to 36 months in prison for accepting bribes in exchange for orchestrating, through multiple misrepresentations to numerous government agencies, the dismissal of a drug trafficking indictment filed against a fugitive narcotics kingpin.

According to admissions in his plea agreement, Christopher V. Ciccione II, 52, of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, accepted cash and other things of value and used his official position to cause a drug trafficking indictment against Colombian national Jose Bayron Piedrahita Ceballos to be dismissed. Piedrahita and Colombian national Juan Carlos Velasco Cano met with Ciccione in Bogota, Colombia in December 2010, where they provided him with approximately $20,000 in cash, dinner, drinks and prostitutes. In exchange, Ciccione disclosed the identities of confidential sources cooperating against Velasco three times, made numerous misrepresentations to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and HSI management, and altered law enforcement records to represent to decision makers that Piedrahita was a “former” suspect of a closed investigation, rather than a “current” subject; that Piedrahita was “never positively identified” during that investigation; and that his case should be dismissed because no one could obtain probable cause to “supersede another indictment.” Ciccone also falsified the concurrence of several other federal agents and attempted to parole Piedrahita into the United States.

Ciccione was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola Jr. of the Southern District of Florida. Velasco was sentenced to 27 months in prison on Jan. 17. Piedrahita is currently incarcerated in the Republic of Colombia.   back...