Man gets 1 year for smuggling $520,000

A Canadian man arrested who tried to smuggle $520,000 into the United States will spend a year in federal prison.

Richard Paul Neumeyer, 66, of Kelowna, B.C., was sentenced last week to 12 months in prison and three years probation. He also forfeited the cash seized in May at the border crossing in Laurier, Ferry County.

Federal agents found the cash - $509,980 in U.S. currency and $10,000 Canadian - in two hidden compartments in the floor of his 2006 Volvo after Neumeyer said he had only $1,600 in cash when he arrived at the crossing.

He confessed to transporting the cash - for a 2 percent cut - to Wickenburg, Ariz., about 60 miles northwest of Phoenix.

Border records show Neumeyer crossed through Laurier on Jan. 7, Feb. 8, March 6, and April 21, according to court documents. He told federal agents he made $9,000 his first trip and $10,000 his second trip.

He pleaded guilty in September to a charge of bulk cash smuggling.

U.S. District Judge William Fremming Nielsen recommended Neumeyer serve his sentence at the Sea-Tac federal prison in Western Washington.