A federal judge has sentenced a former El Paso county judge and a local businessman who pleaded guilty to public corruption charges to four years in prison each.
Anthony Cobos, was the highest administrative official in El Paso between 2007 and 2010. He pleaded guilty in September to taking bribes from local businessman Lorenzo Hilario Aguilar, the other defendant sentenced, in exchange for his vote and influence to steer a $40 million county bond refinancing contract to an investment bank. Federal judge Frank Montalvo handed Cobos a $10,000 fine while Aguilar will have to pay $50,000.
They are among the last of about three-dozen people to be sentenced as a result of a FBI investigation into public corruption that included three former county judges, local businessmen and other politicians.
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