Air marshals plead guilty to bribery, smuggling charges

Two federal air marshals pleaded guilty yesterday to taking $15,000 to smuggle cocaine on a flight in December and agreed to cooperate with the government, which could mean other arrests are coming — though prosecutors said that might not be the case.

According to the criminal complaint against the pair, Shawn Ray Nguyen and Burlie Sholar admitted to accepting the money in exchange for using their positions to sneak about 33 pounds of cocaine past airport security. Nguyen smuggled two envelopes containing drug money and fraudulent government documents past airport security in December and then talked with a government informant about doing the same with the cocaine. After the two were arrested, it came out that Sholar threatened to kill Nguyen and Nguyen threatened to kill the informant, and Nguyen at another point had said the pair could kill anyone they wanted and get away with it. Probably not the best thing to brag about, in retrospect.

Sholar and Nguyen could spend a maximum 10 years in prison and face a maximum $4 million fine for the smuggling charge and could face 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the bribery charge.