Fil-Am gets 3-year probation for dollar smuggling

For not informing US authorities that she was carrying undeclared cash to the Philippines, a Filipino-American woman was sentenced to three years probation for dollar smuggling. Maria Cecilia DeSario was sentenced on November 1 by Judge Susan Oki Mollway of the United States District Court of Hawaii in Honolulu to three-year probation, forfeiture of $26,227 and three months home detention for failing to declare the $52,454 she was supposed to take to Manila to buy her dream condominium. Assistant US Attorney Larry L. Butrick of Hawaii told this reporter over the phone that DeSario would not have lost a cent had she informed US authorities about the money she was carrying. “The US government was not even going to ask her to pay anything for telling the truth. All the US government wants is for her to report the $52,454 she was taking to the Philippines. That’s all," Butrick said. DeSario, 46, a homemaker from California, had pleaded guilty to attempted bulk smuggling in violation of Title 31, US Code, Section 5332(1)(1), and criminal forfeiture related to such offense. Reached for comment, DeSario’s private defense lawyer, Samuel P. King, Jr. of Honolulu, said: “This is a case when a defendant does not know the law. She should have known that taking money out of the United States is not illegal. She should have just declared it if she had more than $10,000 in her possession." Mr. King described Judge Mollway’s decision as “fair and his client is not going to file an appeal." He said his client could have been given maximum five-year jail sentence, a fine of $250,000 and a term of supervised release of not more than three years if she went into trial and was found guilty of the charges against her. Ms. DeSario, a native of the Philippines and a naturalized US citizen, along with her husband and their children, were supposed to fly from Honolulu International Airport to Manila on Hawaiian Airlines Flight No. 455, on June 26, 2009. Before boarding, DeSario and her husband, Ronell David DeSario, were interviewed by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers, who requested the couple to complete US Customs Form 4790 that requires that transfer of US$10,000 from the US to another country be reported. DeSario declared that she had $5,000 while her husband had $10,000 for a total of $15,000. Her husband signed the form. When the CBP officer started verifying their currency, the husband yielded a white envelope in his backpack that had $20,000 and said sorry for lying. When the CBP officer asked the couple again under pain of perjury if they had more money, they declared, “no." When the CBP officers checked all the bags in the aircraft, the couple stated they “had approximately $51,000 - $52,000." The CBP officer later discovered that there was $20,000 in a sealed white envelope wrapped in a pair of women’s shorts from her bag; $320 from her wallet and two bundles, both wrapped in Kleenex tissue paper with $5,000 each from her right front pocket. The CBP officer recovered from the husband $20,000 in his backpack; $1,200 from one of his wallets; $229 from his wallet case; and $705 from his second wallet, for a cash total of $52,454. Ms. DeSario admitted they were bringing $52,454 in cash and concealed the money from the CBP with intent to evade the currency reporting requirements. The CBP immediately seized the $52,454 but refunded her $2,454 for “humanitarian reasons at the time of the seizure." At the plea agreement, Ms. DeSario agreed to forfeit half of the $52,454 seized from her family. The US government became lenient to Ms. DeSario when it was proven that the money they were taking out of the country came from legitimate sources, she had no "criminal history, and she had accepted "full responsibility for her conduct." The $52,454 came from their savings, wage bonuses of her husband and a credit card loan. The couple admitted they concealed the money "out of initial ignorance of the law and very poor judgment and fear once they were being questioned at the airport on their way to Manila." The defendant will also "have a federal felony conviction on her record hereafter." — LBG, GMANews.TV