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Guilty plea filed, new charge announced in illegal immigrant smuggling

July 16, 2006
brFree Press Staff Report


Marcelo Pereira, 34, of Brockton, Mass., pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy to transport illegal immigrants.

He faces a maximum penalty of five years in jail and a $250,000 fine. He will be sentenced Oct. 30 in Burlington.

Pereira, a Brazilian, is alleged to have traveled from Massachusetts to the Vermont-Canadian border near Derby Line on Jan. 30. Border Patrol agents said that about 2 a.m. they saw four people, who turned out to be illegal immigrants, come through the woods and the fields and climb into Pereira's car.

Two of the illegal immigrants were citizens of India and two were citizens of Italy and Iran. All four acknowledged they had entered the U.S. illegally, the U.S. Attorney said. Pereira told authorities he had been paid $2,000 to transport the people, whom he knew to be illegal immigrants, from Vermont to the Boston area.

In another case, the U.S. Attorney's Office charged Juan Martinez-Perez, 45, of Ozone Park, N.Y., on Friday with transporting four illegal immigrants into the United States just after midnight in Alburgh on Tuesday.

Martinez-Perez, who is being represented by a public defender, faces a maximum of five years in prison.

Martinez-Perez allegedly picked up three citizens of the Dominican Republic and one citizen of Mexico on the U.S. side of the border and drove them south in his Chevy minivan on Blair Road in Alburgh, about two miles from the Canadian border.

Martinez-Perez was released on an appearance bond, pending trial.