Czech National Pleads Guilty to Federal Misdemeanor Charge for Impeding Border Patrol Agent

ALBUQUERQUE – Andrej Gecik, 54, a citizen of the Czech Republic with legal permanent resident status in the United States who resides in San Diego, Calif., entered a guilty plea yesterday afternoon in Las Cruces federal court to a misdemeanor charge of impeding a federal officer.

Gecik was arrested on Jan. 22, 2014, on a criminal complaint alleging that he assaulted, impeded and resisted a U.S. Border Patrol agent at the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint on Highway 70, west of Alamogordo, N.M.  Gecik subsequently was indicted and charged with assaulting, impeding and arresting a federal officer.  According to the criminal complaint, Gecik impeded a Border Patrol agent who was engaged in his official duties on Jan. 22, 2014, when the agent attempted to question him about his immigration status.  The criminal complaint states that Gecik tried to push the agent off of the step of his semi-truck and crushed the agent’s fingers in the truck door.  It states that when the agent opened the truck’s door, Gecik struck the agent in the chest with his elbow.

During today’s proceedings, Gecik pled guilty to the indictment and admitted resisting and impeding a federal officer who was engaged in his official duties by refusing to comply with the agent’s directive that he pull into a secondary inspection area to answer questions about his immigration status.  At sentencing, which has yet to be scheduled, Gecik faces a statutory maximum penalty of a year in prison. 

The case was investigated by the Las Cruces office of the FBI and the U.S. Border Patrol, and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Gould of the U.S. Attorney’s Las Cruces Branch Office.