Man accused of holding illegal immigrants hostage gets 7 years
Zach Fowle
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 25, 2008 02:11 PM

A man accused of holding illegal immigrants hostage and beating them with a pistol has been sentenced to seven years in prison.

Asuncion Flores-Gutierrez, 33, of Sinaloa, Mexico, will serve time in a federal prison for his involvement in an illegal immigrant smuggling ring, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office of Arizona on Tuesday.

According to the press release, on March 14, agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement located a house believed to hold illegal immigrants on West Roma Avenue in Phoenix.

They discovered that three men and a juvenile smuggler were holding illegal immigrants hostage inside the house. The men threatened the immigrants while holding guns to their heads and would raise the immigrants' smuggling fees. When two of the illegal immigrants could not pay their fee, the men beat them with pistols, the press release said.

Flores-Gutierrez and his co-defendants, Jose Benavides-Ochoa, 25, and Mario Leon-Olea, 56, also from Sinaloa, Mexico, pleaded guilty to firearms possession in connection with taking a hostage. Benavides-Ochoa, like Flores-Gutierrez, was sentenced to seven years; Leon-Olea was sentenced to five years.
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