Thread: A look at defendants in the nation's deadliest smuggling att

Deadly smuggling

Monday, August 27, 2007

A look at defendants in the nation's deadliest smuggling attempt
Aug. 23, 2007
The Associated Pres

Here's a look at the status of the cases against the 14 defendants authorities say were members of the ring responsible for the 2003 smuggling attempt that resulted in the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants in Texas:

--Tyrone Williams, the truck driver in the attempt and the only defendant who faced the possibility of the death penalty, was sentenced on Thursday to 33 years and 9 months on a conspiracy count and 20 years for each of 19 transporting counts. The sentences will be served concurrently with a life term imposed by a jury in January on 19 other transporting counts.

--Karla Patricia Chavez, the alleged ringleader in the case, pleaded guilty to harboring and transporting illegal immigrants. Her attempts to take back her guilty plea were denied. She was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison.

--Fredy Giovanni Garcia-Tobar and Victor Jesus Rodriguez were convicted in December 2004 of various smuggling-related charges. Rodriguez was sentenced to 20 years and seven months. Garcia-Tobar was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

--Claudia Carrizales de Villa, who was on trial with Rodriguez and Garcia-Tobar, had her charges dismissed by U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore, who said prosecutors failed to prove the case. Carrizales was deported to Mexico because she was an illegal immigrant.

--Victor Sanchez Rodriguez, Emma Sapata Rodriguez and Rosa Sarrata Gonzalez were sentenced after being convicted of conspiracy to harbor and transport illegal immigrants. Sanchez was sentenced to 23 years and four months in prison; Sapata was sentenced to 15 years; and Sarrata was sentenced to 12 years and seven months. Sanchez and Sapata are Rodriguez's parents. Sanchez, Sapata and Sarrata had fled to Mexico after the smuggling attempt and had faced similar smuggling-related charges there. But those charges were dismissed and they were returned to the United States.

--Abelardo Flores, Fatima Holloway and Norma Gonzalez Sanchez pleaded guilty to various charges. Flores was set to be sentenced Sept. 10. Holloway, who was a key prosecution witness in several trials, was sentenced to the three days of jail time she had already served. Sanchez was sentenced to 30 months in prison but released because she already served 33 months after her arrest. But she will be resentenced because an appeals court in April threw out her sentence of time served.

--Juan Carlos Don Juan was sentenced to 14 months he had already served for helping to transport and conceal a 3-year-old Honduran son of one of the smuggling attempt's survivors in an effort to extort money from the boy's relatives.

--Erica Cardenas had charges against her dismissed. Cardenas, Don Juan's girlfriend, was charged in the extortion attempt.

--Octavio Torres Ortega was arrested in Mexico on charges connected to the smuggling deaths. But a Mexican federal judge dismissed the charges. He remains a fugitive from U.S. authorities.

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pb ... 46/OPINION

The employers that enticed the illegal aliens to America, were not convicted of any wrong doing in these murders by affixation. They got away with murder.

These illegal aliens were locked in a tractor trailer during the hot Texas Summer.

Next time you hear an employer complain about loosing his illegal labor, send him a copy of the details of how they died trying to work for his slave wages.

The employers are the reason this happened.

Dixie