He Wanted His Wife Gone. So He Drove to an ICE Office

It may have seemed like a simple plan in his own mind. But, as the Washington Post reports, what Antonio Oswaldo Burgos tried to do in an attempt to get rid of his wife didn't end well: He tried to bribe an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer to deport her, was arrested, pleaded guilty, and has now been sentenced to prison time. NBC News laid out the timeline in a 2018 report: On May 24 of last year, Burgos showed up at an ICE office in Portland, Ore., followed an officer who left the building, and approached him when he stopped nearly 15 miles later in a parking lot in Vancouver, Wash. That's when Burgos made an initial offer of $4,000 if the officer could arrange to have his wife removed from the country. The officer played along—then notified ICE authorities, who set up a sting.

Two more phone calls took place between Burgos and the officer, and on June 6, the two met again and Burgos handed over $2,000, promising $2,000 more when the deed was done. He was arrested June 29. Burgos pleaded guilty in November to bribing a public official; on Monday the 48-year-old was sentenced to four months in federal prison, per a release. He'll also have three years of supervised release. In a filing, it was noted Burgos and his wife, who had a child by another man, married in El Salvador but became disenchanted with each other after coming to the US; a divorce had already been set in motion. If Burgos had been convicted, he could have seen 15 years in jail and a $250,000 fine. (More ICE stories.)