Smuggler gets 20 years in prison; crashed into CHP car


SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
December 16, 2006

A smuggler who was driving a GMC Suburban that crashed head-on into a California Highway Patrol car while going the wrong way on an East County freeway last year was sentenced yesterday to nearly 20 years in federal prison.

No one was seriously injured in the Aug. 17, 2005, crash on eastbound Interstate 8 near Pine Valley.

Jovanni Mendoza, 26, a U.S. citizen who was living in Tijuana, was convicted in a nonjury trial in August.

His Suburban was going about 55 mph, fleeing from a CHP officer, when it crashed into another patrol car that was weaving back and forth with lights flashing in an effort to stop traffic.

Border Patrol agents arrested five of the six passengers in the Suburban, none of whom had documents to be in the country. Authorities also found 693 pounds of marijuana in suitcases in the truck, prosecutor John Kraemer said.

Mendoza ran away but was captured a week later when he tried going through an immigration checkpoint while driving a different Suburban, the prosecutor said in a court filing.

U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw cited Mendoza's criminal history when he imposed the 235-month sentence and ordered him to pay the Highway Patrol $9,874 in restitution.

Mendoza was arrested driving the wrong way on the freeway six weeks before the crash but was not charged with smuggling because he did not have any contraband or illegal immigrants with him then.

Authorities believe he had dropped off people he was smuggling before his arrest, Kraemer said.

In 2002, Mendoza was arrested after Border Patrol officers discovered 31 illegal immigrants in a van he was driving, Kraemer said.

That was one of more than eight prior incidents, including one in which he nearly hit a Border Patrol agent after driving through a checkpoint, Kraemer said in a court filing.

Defense lawyer Felix Martinez said Mendoza, who was raised by a single mother in East Los Angeles, had not been prosecuted in those earlier smuggling arrests because authorities thought he was Mexican.

Martinez urged the judge not to take those incidents into account.

Smugglers driving the wrong way on freeways have posed a vexing problem in East County in recent years.

Immigrant smugglers moved routes to the mountains and deserts east of San Diego following a crackdown known as Operation Gatekeeper that began in the mid-1990s near San Ysidro and Otay Mesa.

Guides walk immigrants across the border on rugged terrain and meet up with drivers who sometimes take reckless means to avoid checkpoints and law enforcement.

Highway Patrol officers sometimes call off pursuits when smugglers endanger other drivers. When he was arrested for the head-on crash, Mendoza told Border Patrol agents that he had been smuggling people since he was 16 and his father was also a smuggler, Kraemer said.

Mendoza also bragged he had been chased by law enforcement 34 times in a one month, claiming that was a record, he said.

He later denied those statements.


U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, the illegal alien smuggler's best friend

Like I have been saying, these smugglers here in San Diego get away with murder. This scumbag has been smuggling since he was 16 years old and it took until now for him to get a real prison sentence? Carol Lam, the U.S. Attorney for the San Diego sector is a joke. She has a record of prosecuting only 6% of all smugglers caught. That means 94% of all smugglers arrested are never prosecuted by her department, she just lets them walk, free to do it again and again. No wonder they keep doing it, if they know the lame-ass U.S. Attorney Lam won't prosecute them, they just keep on smuggling. So those of us living in East County get the joy of dodging smuggling vehicles, driving head on towards us going the wrong direction in the fast lane of the freeways, doing 100mph with their lights off at night to avoid capture by the authorities. And what does our local news do?When people get killed in head on crashes they report them as simple wrong way driver stories, with barely a mention that these scum are smugglers. I'm not kidding, they report them as wrong way driver accidents.