Sex got her past border, prostitute says

A Canadian prostitute says she bared her cleavage and hiked up her skirt as she drove through the border at Blaine, where her "sure thing" always waved her through with a smile, even though her car was packed full of marijuana.

Minutes later, she'd fool around with the guard at a gas station down the road.

The border guard, Desmone Bastian, says it never happened.

"I've never failed to perform my duties," Bastian told a federal jury Friday in Seattle. "I did my job with a lot of integrity, and a lot of pride."

Bastian, 31, a U.S. citizen who lives in Surrey, B.C., worked as a U.S. immigration inspector for eight years before being charged in 2006 with taking a bribe — free sexual contact, and sometimes money — in exchange for turning a blind eye when the prostitute, Sandra Maas, would cross the border in his lane.

Maas was caught with oxycodone pills in her underwear by other inspectors in April of that year, and Bastian was arrested several months later when the extent of the pair's contact became clear.

Closing arguments in the case are set for Tuesday, with Bastian's attorney, Michael Nance, planning to say Maas lied about his client's actions in hopes of winning leniency from the government. Maas has been sentenced to two years for the oxycodone charge, but she has not been charged with conspiring to import marijuana.

Prosecutors say that despite knowing Maas was a prostitute and having smelled marijuana at her town house, Bastian cleared her at the border seven times between June 2004 and February 2005, and he never sent her for secondary inspection. She brought across hundreds of pounds of pot, at least. Furthermore, they say, he confessed after his arrest — though Bastian maintains he did not and that the investigators misunderstood him.

Bastian could face a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison if convicted. In addition to charges of taking a bribe, he's charged with conspiracy to import marijuana, conspiracy to commit theft of honest services, and aiding and abetting the importation of marijuana.

With his mother, aunt, and his wife's parents in attendance, he broke down on the witness stand as he described how he didn't feel appreciated in his marriage when he called Maas at her escort service for the first time in 2001 or 2002. Now, he's "deeply regretful" and "humiliated just talking about it," he told the jury, wiping his eyes with tissues provided by a court clerk.

He admitted paying her $150 for sex on two occasions, but he said he never received free sex, and he had no idea she used or trafficked drugs — even though he sometimes smelled marijuana at her town house when she was the only person home. And, he said, when he would tell her in advance what lane he was working in, it was only because he wanted to see her.

On Wednesday, Maas testified that she would "usually come in something revealing," sometimes with duffel bags of marijuana "stacked up beside me and in the back seat."

"He didn't even ask for my identification," she said, and, on at least two occasions, she fooled around with him at the gas station down the road. She described the arrangement as "mutually pleasurable."

Under cross-examination from Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Brown, Bastian acknowledged that he wasn't forthcoming with investigators when first questioned about Maas, but only because he didn't want the infidelity to become known, he said. Bastian also acknowledged that the two spoke on the phone about 20 times in the weeks leading up to her arrest, and that he decided to undertake his own investigation to see if other guards were singling her out for close examination at the border.

But Bastian maintained that he never confessed to giving Maas a free pass for sex. Three investigators testified that he did confess. If such a confession was made, it was not recorded or signed.

"I would never do or say anything like that," he insisted.