In a first ruling of its kind, three former agents got prison time for denying care to an immigrant who died:

...a Houston federal judge sentenced three former immigration agents to prison Monday for denying medical care to a paralyzed illegal immigrant who later died of his injuries.

A federal jury convicted the three men in June of acting with deliberate indifference for failing to get timely medical care for Serafin Olvera after his neck was broken during a struggle with immigration agents in Bryan on March 25, 2001.

Olvera, a Mexican citizen who had been living in Houston since 1977, died in February 2002. U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal sentenced Richard Henry Gonzales to 78 months in prison, Louis Rey Gomez to 41 months and Carlos Reyna to 33 months.

Prosecutor Eric Morales, who works for the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., said this is the first case he is aware of in which federal agents were convicted of failing to provide medical aid to illegal immigrants.