A 74-year-old Chula Vista businesswoman was fined $1,500 and placed on five years probation June 26 after she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder money in connection with renting a warehouse that concealed a hidden underground tunnel to Mexico.
Glennys “Gladys” Marie Rodriguez was given no additional jail time by U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw, who gave her credit for several days in jail when she was first charged in April 2014.
Both the prosecutor and her attorney recommended a sentence on probation, court records show. Rodriguez is under care of a neurologist after she fell and struck her head requiring 17 stitches to close the wound. The sentence had been delayed because of her medical treatment.
Her attorney, Lupe Rodriguez, Jr., wrote in court documents his client was in the process of closing a 30-year-old business in Chula Vista which provides immigration services and prepares taxes. He said his client was unaware of the tunnel in the Otay Mesa business warehouse.
Although it was suspected that drugs had been smuggled through the 600-yard tunnel, no drugs were found. The tunnel was found under a machine in the warehouse and it led to a 68-foot vertical shaft. The tunnel had lighting, ventilation, and a rail system that opened inside a mini-storage facility in Tijuana about 800 feet from the U.S. border.
Sabraw ordered Rodriguez not to enter Mexico while on probation. Her neighbors, friends, and adult children wrote character references to the judge on her behalf.
Meanwhile, a second person connected to the tunnel, Gilberto Quezada-Madrid, 26, of Tijuana, has been sentenced to 416 days in federal prison which he has already served. He pleaded guilty to use of a cross border tunnel.
Quezada-Madrid’s attorney wrote in court documents that he had no information about who financed or arranged for the tunnel to be constructed. He has since been released from jail.
