Fronteras

A Customs and Border Protection employee is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday after he sold parts from Border Patrol vehicles on eBay.

Herold Demes was a mechanic employed by the Border Patrol in Tucson. Last May, a federal grand jury indicted him on a government theft charge. He 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.

Hemes 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.

Prosecutors will ask for a maximum six months prison sentence and that Hemes pay the Border Patrol back $2,400 in restitution.