Sentencing reset in stolen cigarette operation
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – A federal sentencing hearing has been rescheduled in the case of a Florida man convicted in Mississippi for his role in a multistate cigarette smuggling operation.
Mitchell Sivina, of Doral, Fla., pleaded guilty in May in U.S. District Court in Oxford, Miss., to money laundering and transporting stolen cigarettes. Court records show Sivina’s sentencing has been delayed from March until April 4 due to a scheduling conflict.
Prosecutors said Sivina acted as a broker between people who stole about $2 million worth of cigarettes from a Kentucky parking lot in 2006 and wholesalers who bought them in Mississippi and Kentucky.
Prosecutors say Sivina was once paid with a box containing $350,000 cash that was tossed over the fence of a northern Mississippi airport.