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Freight Dawgs Rule
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////////NEW YORK (AP) -- A military pilot and an enlisted man pleaded guilty Friday to charges they returned from an overseas mission with 300,000 pills of Ecstasy worth millions of dollars.
Capt. Franklin Rodriguez, 36, and Master Sgt. John Fong, 37, pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in federal court, admitting their roles in the April 2005 flight for the Air National Guard.
Both face up to 20 years in prison when sentenced Aug. 25.
Rodriguez, the pilot, and Fong, a load master, were on a mission to deliver supplies to the Republic of Georgia. On the return flight, they stopped in Germany to load the pills aboard their C-5A "Galaxy" cargo plane.
After the flight arrived, federal agents watched Fong load bags and boxes into a car at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, N.Y. They asked to inspect the cargo and found 28 bags of pills, authorities said.
Ecstasy is a synthetic drug considered part hallucinogen, part amphetamine.
Lawrence Carra, a lawyer for Rodriguez, said his client was "immensely remorseful." He expected Rodriguez to spend about 15 years in prison.
Fong's lawyer was not immediately available for comment.
Authorities have said each pill of Ecstasy could have been sold on the street for $9 to $40, meaning the seized drugs were worth $2.9 million to $11.6 million.