CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / COVINA
Two Mexican federal police officers and a brother and sister from the San Gabriel Valley have pleaded no contest to charges stemming from the seizure of more than $600,000 in alleged drug proceeds from a Covina home.
As part of Wednesday’s pretrial deal, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William Ryan sentenced the officers to time served since their arrest, according to the district attorney’s office.
Carlos Cedano Filippini, 35, and Victor Juarez, 36, will face deportation, a district attorney spokeswoman said. They had been working in the Mexicali office of the Federal Investigative Agency, Mexico’s equivalent of the FBI.
Cedano pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor count of being an accessory to a felony, and Juarez pleaded no contest to a felony charge of possessing more than $100,000 in drug proceeds.
Hector and Julissa Lopez pleaded no contest to the same felony count as Juarez.
The money was found at their parents’ home after narcotics investigators stormed the residence, prosecutors say. The parents were not implicated.
Julissa Lopez, 36, the common-law wife of Cedano, was sentenced to time spent in jail awaiting trial. Hector Lopez, 33, returns to court next month and could get up to a year behind bars.
-- Paul Pringle
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