Accused air marshals vicious, kind of stupid

From the "It's good to know we have this kind of people protecting us" file comes the story of two federal air marshals who seem pretty happy abusing their positions, if testimony from a Homeland Security agent is correct.

Burlie L. Sholar III and Shawn Ray Nguyen are accused of conspiring with a cooperating witness to use their jobs to smuggle 33 pounds of cocaine aboard a plane from Houston to Las Vegas. They were arrested last week and sent to the federal detention center downtown. One day, the pair was being taken from the jail to the courthouse when Sholar told Nguyen "his life [wouldn't be] worth anything" if he gave information to authorities, Homeland Security agent Stuart Maneth testified today in a detention and arraignment hearing. Maneth also said Nguyen threatened to kill the confidential witness with whom he and Sholar conspired, telling the witness at one point, "If you tell anything, I'll put you to sleep, I swear to God." We assume he wasn't talking about slipping the witness some Unisom.

But that's not all: At another meeting with the witness, Nguyen said, "Homeboy and I can kill and get away with it," referring to himself and Sholar. Nguyen didn't realize the informant was recording the conversation. Oops!

If Nguyen and Sholar are convicted, they could face 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $4 million. That's a lot of money, homeboy.