NY immigration agent pleads guilty to sex coercion
Headline Legal News
A federal immigration officer who was recorded demanding sex from a woman in exchange for a green card has pleaded guilty.
Isaac Baichu pleaded guilty to all the charges against him Wednesday in Queens. The 48-year-old is expected to receive a prison sentence of 1 1/2 to 4 1/2 years.
The case involved a Colombian woman married to an American citizen. The woman said she gave in to one sex demand in December 2007 because she was afraid, but she used a mobile phone hidden in her purse to record the encounter.
She took the recording to The New York Times and to the Queens district attorney's office.
Baichu was arrested in March 2008 after meeting with the woman again, this time with prosecutors listening in.
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Texas Adopts Statewide Texting-While-Driving Ban
Effective September 1, 2017, Texas will become the 47th state to pass a statewide ban on texting while driving. Governor Abbott’s signing of House Bill 62 is an effort to unify Texas under a uniform ban and remedy the “patchwork quilt of regulations that dictate driving practices in Texas.”
The bill specifically prohibits drivers from reading, writing, or sending an electronic message on a device unless the vehicle is stopped. That includes texting and emailing. It does not, however, prohibit dialing a number to call someone, talking on the phone using a hands-free device, or using the phone’s GPS system.
Violations would be punishable by a fine ranging from $25 to $99, to be set by each municipality. Although penalties could rise to as much as $200 for repeat offenders.
Studies have found that a driver’s reaction time is half as much when a driver is distracted by sending or reading a text message. According to state officials, in 2015 more than 105,000 traffic accidents in Texas involved distracted driving, leading to at least 476 fatalities.