Fronteras

A Customs and Border Protection employee was sentenced last Wednesday to one year probation and ordered to pay about $3,500 in penalties after he sold parts from Border Patrol vehicles on eBay.

Herold Demes was a mechanic employed by the Border Patrol in Tucson. An agency spokesman said Demes worked as a mechanic for the agency for more than five years and resigned March 2, 2016. He pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor government theft charge the next day.

Last year, a federal grand jury indicted him after investigators found he'd removed equipment from U.S. Border Patrol vehicles and then sold those parts on the online auction site.

Those parts included two driver side airbags that he sold for about $270 apiece, a fuel pump that he sold for $280 and a seat belt tensioner that he sold online for $40.

Demes admitted in a federal court plea agreement that he bought the fuel pump and filed false paperwork that he’d installed the new fuel pump on a Border Patrol Dodge Ram truck.

As part of his penalty, Demes was ordered to reimburse the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector about $2,400.

A CBP spokesman sent this statement: "We do not tolerate misconduct by any of our agents, officers or support personnel and fully cooperate with all investigations of wrongdoing."

EDITOR'S NOTE: This headline was modified to correct the title of the Border Patrol employee.