Texas woman sentenced in Illinois to federal prison in illegal immigrant case

By Associated Press
9:20 AM CDT, July 12, 2010

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (AP) — A Texas woman has been ordered to spend one year and four months in federal prison on charges that she transported seven illegal immigrants in southwestern Illinois.

Thirty-nine-year-old Gabriela Maldonado of Conroe, Texas, was sentenced Friday in federal court in East St. Louis.

She pleaded guilty in March to seven counts of transportation of an illegal alien for financial gain.

Maldonado was arrested last September after an Illinois state trooper stopped her van for improper lane usage in Madison County, then found seven male illegal immigrants in her vehicle.

Maldonado said she worked part-time transporting people from Houston to Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky and Kansas, making $500 each trip. Maldonado insisted she did not know the men were in the country illegally.

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