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Man gets six months for transporting illegals
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
An illegal alien arrested in Runnemede in March was sentenced Tuesday to six months in federal prison for transporting illegal aliens.

Francisco Ramirez-Martinez, 26, a Mexican national, had pleaded guilty to taking $500 in return for transporting approximately 18 passengers who had entered the United States illegally, picking them up in Phoenix, Ariz. and dropping them off around the country, authorities said.

Ramirez-Martinez said he was provided with a truck and instructed to collect money from the illegal aliens when he dropped them off, said authorities.

A New Jersey State Police trooper who pulled Ramirez-Martinez over on the New Jersey Turnpike in Runnemede on March 30 found four males and a female in the cab of the truck and three more males in the bed of the truck, authorities said.

Ramirez-Martinez could produce only a Mexican driver's license and none of the others had any kind of identification, said authorities.

A federal judge in Trenton also ordered Ramirez-Martinez, who entered a guilty plea on April 25, to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on his deportation when he's released from prison.

-- Jim Six