The United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, Stephen R. Wigginton, announced today that Miguel Rivera-Bugarin was sentenced on April 17, 2015 to 84 months (7 years) in prison for Illegal Re-Entry After Deportation By An Aggravated Felon.
Rivera-Bugarin, 33, is a citizen of Mexico who has been previously deported or removed from the U.S. to Mexico on nine separate occasions.
Rivera-Bugarin pled guilty to the federal charge on Dec. 13, 2014. He has been continuously confined since his arrest by Madison County Sheriff’s deputies on Aug. 21, 2014, for Possession of Methamphetamine, a state offense for which he was subsequently convicted.
At his federal sentence hearing on April 17th, U.S. District Court Judge David R. Herndon observed that "Mr. Rivera-Bugarin is a career criminal, drug dealer and car thief." Judge Herndon further noted that Rivera-Bugarin had ignored the orders of nine other judges who had previously instructed him not to return to the United States, and that the relatively short prison sentences which Rivera-Bugarin had received in the past "did not seem to serve as a deterrent."
The investigation which resulted in Rivera-Bugarin’s arrest and conviction was conducted by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and by the Madison County Sheriff’s Department.
The case was assigned to Assistant United States Attorney Robert L. Garrison.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
