http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3442970

Nov. 7, 2005, 12:24PM

Guilty plea withdrawn in 11 immigrant deaths
Associated Press

Facing a possible life sentence, the accused leader of a South Texas smuggling ring withdrew his guilty plea today in the deaths of 11 illegal immigrants in 2002.

Juan Fernando Licea-Cedillo surprised prosecutors, the judge and even his own lawyers when he told a federal court at his sentencing hearing in Houston that he had filed a motion last week withdrawing his 2004 guilty plea to one count of conspiring to transport and harbor illegal immigrants.

"My attorney didn't explain to me the exact consequences of my plea agreement. I didn't know I was going to be held responsible for the deaths" Licea-Cedillo told U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt through an interpreter.

Gerardo Montalvo, Licea-Cedillo's attorney, said he knew his client had filed a motion last week, but didn't know what it was. He said he believed the withdrawal motion was sparked by the government's October motion seeking a life sentence.

Hoyt delayed the sentencing for Licea-Cedillo and for Arnulfo Flores Jr., a former Union Pacific train conductor who authorities say Licea-Cedillo paid for information about train schedules so he could know when to put immigrants on railcars. The judge said he would rule, possibly within a week, on the withdrawal motion.

Eleven mostly Central American immigrants were loaded into a grain hopper in Harlingen on the night of June 15, 2002.

They were only supposed to stay in the railcar, which could not be opened from the inside, until the train passed a Border Patrol checkpoint in Sarita, 74 miles to the north.

But the train was stopped in Armstrong, about 20 miles south of Sarita. Border Patrol agents found 24 immigrants in another rail car, but missed the other 11.

Licea-Cedillo lost track of the rail car. He "made several half-hearted attempts to find the missing grain car," Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Wynne wrote in a court filing last month.

But another of Licea-Cedillo's attorneys, David Adler, said Licea-Cedillo didn't load the 11 immigrants onto the railcar and he assumed the Border Patrol had found them as well.

The train continued north and the trapped immigrants died of dehydration and hyperthermia within a day or two.

The rail car sat in a storage facility near Oklahoma City for four months until it was called up to the farming community of Denison, Iowa. A cleaning crew there made the grisly discovery of the mostly skeletonized remains.

Flores, the conductor, faces up to 20 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to conspiring to transport illegal immigrants. His attorney, Robert Berg, did not return several calls from The Associated Press.

Licea-Cedillo and Flores were two of four members of the ring indicted on charges of smuggling and hiding illegal immigrants. The other two, Rogelio Hernandez Ramos, 40, and Guillermo Madrigal Ballesteros, 48, both from Mexico, remain fugitives.

Prosecutors said Licea-Cedillo, 28, from Mexico, smuggled immigrants from March 1998 until February 2003, charging from $300 to $1,000.

Crawford County Sheriff Tom Hogan, one of the first officials in Iowa who responded after the bodies were found, said those responsible should be punished.

"There needs to be justice for the people that died in that car," he said.

It took about seven months before the victims were identified through DNA tests.

The remains, returned to their home countries, were identified as Lesly Esmeralda Ferrufino, 26; Pedro Amador Lopez, 37; Rosibel Ferrufino, 24; Lely Elizabet Ferrufino, 35; and Isidro Avila Bueso, 38, all of Honduras;

Juan Enrique Reyes Meza, 27; Omar Esparza Contreras, 23; and Roberto Esparza Rico, 23; all of Mexico;

Mercedes Gertrudis Guido Lorente, 40, of Nicaragua; Domingo Ardon Sibrian, 36, of El Salvador; and Bayron Adner Acevedo Perez, 18, of Guatemala.