Mar.14, 2010

The Advocate: A Greensburg lawyer has pleaded guilty in Houston to money laundering in connection with an international drug ring, federal prosecutors said.

William Hugh Sibley, who faces up to 20 years in prison, is set for sentencing, June 4, in US District Court, said Nancy Herrera, executive assistant US attorney in the Houston office.

Sibley today changed his innocent plea to guilty before US District Judge Gray H. Miller under an agreement with prosecutors, online court records show. The plea agreement was not immediately available.

Sibley, 63, was indicted last year in connection with a drug ring that prosecutors accused of making "multi-kilogram" cocaine shipments and operating in Mexico, Venezuela and the central, western and southern United States.

The ring also transported hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars between the United States and other countries, prosecutors alleged.

Two other defendants charged in the indictment are awaiting trial, and tworemain at large, including the ring's reputed leader, Alejandro Flores-Cacho, Herrera said.