By MEGHANN M. CUNIFF / ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Published: Dec. 19, 2013 Updated: 1:46 p.m.

A young Orange County couple are facing federal felony charges in San Diego after border agents reported finding two Mexican men in the trunk of their car Tuesday.

Kyli Nichole Muscente and Skyler Genaro Yap� appeared Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mitchell Dembin. They are charged with transporting an illegal immigrant.

The two grew up in Fountain Valley and graduated from high school there – Muscente in 2011 and Yap in 2010, according to their Facebook pages.

According to court documents, Muscente told investigators that she received $1,000 about a month ago for transporting a man through a U.S. Border Patrol station to the Inland Empire.

She enlisted her boyfriend to help her with this week’s trip to “help lessen any suspicion when coming through the checkpoint while also allowing Yap to earn some money,” Border Patrol Agent Jonathan Burland wrote in an affidavit supporting the arrests.

Authorities said Muscente told investigators she sprayed the men in her trunk with perfume to try to conceal their scent from Border Patrol dogs. But a dog alerted agents to her blue Ford sedan as it entered a checkpoint on I-8 in Pine Valley, about 20 miles north of Mexico, authorities said.

An agent asked Muscente and Yap to exit the car and sit in an area reserved for advanced inspections.

According to an affidavit by agents, Muscente “nervously stated, ‘There are two men in the trunk.’”

Agents said they found two Mexican citizens, later identified as Jose Humberto Hernandez-Gloria and Alejandro Ramos-Castillo, in the trunk and determined they weren't authorized to be in the United States. They were arrested on suspicion of entering the country illegally.

Muscente and Yap were arrested shortly afterward.

According to the Border Patrol, Muscente said she was to be paid $1,500 to transport Hernandez-Gloria and Ramos-Castillo. Authorities said she and Yap traveled from their Orange County apartment to Calexico, 122 miles east of San Diego, where they picked up one man, then traveled to another location to pick up the other man.

Investigators said Ramos-Castillo and Hernandez-Gloria told them they arranged in Baja California, Mexico, to pay $5,000 to $6,000 to travel to the United States. They are considered witnesses in the case against Muscente and Yap.

Transporting an illegal immigrant carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/m...ap-border.html