Thread: Trucker faces more charges in human smuggling deaths

Trucker faces more charges in human smuggling deaths

Monday, October 2, 2017




The truck driver arrested in a botched smuggling operation that left 10 illegal immigrants dead while delivering a trailer from a Schaller, Iowa trucking company, will be spared the death penalty.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Antonio said it will not seek the death penalty against James Bradley Jr., but he is facing three additional charges including possession of a firearm by a felon, and if convicted, could spend the rest of his life in prison without chance of parole.

Bradley pled not guilty, claiming that he was only delivering a trailer for his former boss in Schaller to the buyer’s pickup location in Texas, and that he had no idea the immigrants were in the trailer. However, he was found in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, hundreds of miles out of the way of his delivery route, as smugglers arrived to pick up passengers who had paid them for transport into the country.

Authorities say the smuggling operation unraveled after an immigrant from the sweltering hot truck trailer approached a store employee in the lot, begging for water. Alerted officials arrived to find Bradley sitting in the cab of the truck with a crowd of immigrants still in the opened trailer, including eight dead bodies. Two more died from heat-related damage later at local medical facilities. A handgun was seized from the cab of Bradley’s truck.

Court records now state the immigrants estimated the trailer contained between 70 to 180 people during the transport. The trailer’s cooling systembroken and the immigrants fought to breathe and made many attempts to get the driver to stop by banging on the trailer as they headed north.

A grand jury returned the seven-count superseding indictment against 60-year-old Bradley Sept. 20.

A second suspect has also been charged. Pedro Silva Segura, 47, of Laredo, who is in the U.S. illegally, is accused of transporting and hiding the immigrants, after he was reportedly seen leaving a house where investigators later found 18 undocumented immigrants.

The indictment charges Bradley and Silva each with one count of conspiracy to transport and harbour immigrants who are illegally in the U.S. for financial gain resulting in death; one count of conspiracy to transport and harbour immigrants who are illegally in the U.S. for financial gain resulting in serious bodily injury and placing lives in jeopardy; and two counts of transporting immigrants who are illegally in the U.S. resulting in serious bodily injury and placing lives in jeopardy.

The superseding indictment also charges Bradley alone with the three additional counts: transportation of immigrants who are illegally in the U.S. resulting in death; transporting immigrants who are illegally in the U.S. resulting in serious bodily injury and placing lives in jeopardy; and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Bradley has remained in federal custody since his arrest at the scene. Authorities have said they are investigating the case as part of a broader operation to organize and fund the movement of people illegally across the southern border.

Meanwhile, the nearly two dozen survivors found in the trailer are no longer needed to testify against the driver accused of smuggling them across the border, according to authorities, and may lose their protection.

The U.S. attorney’s office in San Antonio said it is cancelling depositions for all 22. The survivors had sought visas to stay in the United States in exchange for testifying against Bradley and other suspects in a human smuggling ring. Two who had previously been deported have reportedly been sent back to Mexico.

Advocates for the survivors feel they may be easy prey for the smugglers they agreed to testify against.

Trucker faces more charges in human smuggling deaths(Local News ~ 10/02/17)

The "survivors" are illegal aliens in total cahoots with the drug cartels who smuggled them in. They are not victims, they are they are lawbreakers whose own bad deeds cost the life of several other illegal aliens. If you're evil and stupid enough to pay someone to put you in a vegetable cooler to sneak your ass into the US to cause havoc in our country, then I'm sorry, you got what you paid for.

No more "life in prison".

Our jails and prisons are overcrowded...start hanging these POS criminals at sunrise.