I hope this is not a dup - I looked. If it is please pull it.

Rosa Sarrata Gonzalez, 52, of San Benito, was handed the maximum sentence under the guidelines, 12 years and seven months



Sept. 12, 2006, 10:22AM
Extra years given in 19 deaths
3 are sentenced in immigrant smuggling case, and 2 get terms above maximum


By HARVEY RICE
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

A Houston judge piled extra years onto the sentences of two convicted smugglers Monday — and slapped a third with the maximum prison term under federal guidelines — for their roles in a bungled smuggling attempt that left 19 illegal immigrants dead.

Saying that sentencing guidelines failed to take into account such a large number of deaths, U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore sent Victor Sanchez Rodriguez to prison for 23 years and four months.

It was the most severe of the seven sentences Gilmore has handed down thus far in the aborted May 2003 scheme to smuggle illegal immigrants inside a truck trailer, where many of them suffocated or died from the heat.

"The government is seeking to send a message ... that this horrific, vile practice has to stop," Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Rodriguez said.

The sentence imposed on Victor Rodriguez, 58, of Brownsville, was three years and four months more than the maximum recommended penalty under federal sentencing guidelines.

Gilmore sentenced his wife, Emma Rodriguez, 60, to 15 years in prison. That exceeded the sentencing guideline by three years and seven months.

Rosa Sarrata Gonzalez, 52, of San Benito, was handed the maximum sentence under the guidelines, 12 years and seven months. Partly on the testimony of her two sons, who grew up in the smuggling business, she was convicted of smuggling one of the people in the trailer.

Victor Rodriguez led one of two smuggling operations that funneled illegal immigrants to an organization headed by Karla Patricia Chavez Joya for transportation to Houston. Chavez Joya was sentenced in May to 17 years in prison.

Three of the eight people the Rodriguezes are accused of smuggling died in the trailer, including a 5-year-old boy and his father.

The judge blamed Victor Rodriguez for the involvement of his wife and of his son, Victor Jesus Rodriguez, whom she sentenced in July to 20 years and seven months in prison for his role in the botched smuggling operation.

The Rodriguezes' three daughters sobbed and two of them walked out of the courtroom upon hearing their father sentenced to six more years than Chavez Joya received.

"It's very unfair," said Sylvia Rodriguez, 39, of Dallas. "This is ridiculous that the prosecutors would say such things about my father."

Rodriguez's attorney, David Adler, said the sentence "makes no sense."

Although most federal judges use the sentencing guidelines, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that they are not bound by them. The couple have an automatic right to appeal within 10 days because their sentences exceeded the guidelines. Victor Rodriguez filed his appeal immediately.

Although tough, the sentences were far less than the life in prison that prosecutors had sought for the Rodriguezes and the 20 years for Sarrata.

The team of prosecutors had asked Gilmore to stack sentences for each of the 18 smuggling counts on which Victor Rodriguez was convicted and the 15 counts on which Emma Rodriguez was convicted so that they amounted to life sentences.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against the truck driver, Tyrone Williams, who is scheduled to be tried for the second time on Oct. 3. A jury last year failed to reach a verdict.

The three who were sentenced Monday were among 14 people indicted after the May 14, 2003, discovery of 17 bodies in and near the abandoned trailer at a truck stop in Victoria. Two more riders died in a hospital.

After immigration agents thwarted the Rodriguezes' attempt to hold for ransom the 3-year-old son of a Honduran woman who survived the trailer ride, the Rodriguezes and Sarrata fled to Mexico with Octavio Torres Ortega, who was accused of leading another smuggling group that put immigrants in the trailer.

All four were arrested in Mexico and all but Torres were deported in February to stand trial in Houston. Torres, who was allowed to remain in Mexico because he claimed Mexican citizenship, remains a fugitive.

In addition to Torres and Williams, seven of those indicted have been sentenced, three are awaiting sentencing, one was acquitted and charges against one were dropped.

harvey.rice@chron.com