Thread: Van Driver In Fatal Bus Crash Facing More Charges

I thought that illegals are only hard working economically displaced ‘migrants’ that regardless of the laws they break by entering, remaining and operating in America, are only here for a better life at the expense of no one. Isn't illegal immigration a victimless crime?

I'm just glad someone is actually prosicuting these people for this. It usually gets swept under the rug and forgotten.

coming out of AP Minneapolis

The Associated Press • February 29, 2008

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – Federal prosecutors filed identity theft charges today against the woman accused in a school bus crash that killed four students.

Olga Marina Franco del Cid, 24, of Minneota, was already charged in state court with four counts of criminal vehicular homicide.

The new charges accuse her of giving authorities a false name and Social Security number after the crash Feb. 19, when four students were killed when a van she drove crashed into their school bus near Cottonwood in southwestern Minnesota. She was charged with two counts of aggravated identity theft and two counts of false representation of a Social Security number.

Prosecutors filed the same federal charges against her live-in boyfriend, Francisco Sangabriel-Mendoza, 29, also of Minneota, who prosecutors say was the registered owner of the van. A warrant was issued for his arrest, and authorities asked anyone who knows his whereabouts to call the Immigration and Customs Enforcement toll free hot line at 1-866-347-2423.

Franco’s attorney, Manuel Guerrero of St. Paul, declined comment on the new charges, saying he hadn’t seen them. Franco did not immediately return a message left at the Lyon County Jail in Marshall.

Both of Franco and Sangabriel-Mendoza face maximum potential penalties of five years in prison on each false representation count and two years on each identity theft count.

Right after the crash, Franco identified herself as Alianiss Nunez-Morales.
But immigration investigators found the real Nunez-Morales in Connecticut. She told them her purse and identification documents were stolen more than six months ago when she was living in Puerto Rico, according to an ICE affidavit.

The affidavit alleges Franco used Nunez-Morales’ Social Security number to obtain a Minnesota identification card, an ID that is not a driver’s license. Franco allegedly was not licensed to drive in Minnesota. She also allegedly gave the Social Security number at two Minnesota companies where she worked.

http://beta.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.d ... S/80229051


Am I missing something in the high-lighted area? Knowing the "flight rules" this woman didn't take her id to Puerto Rico with her? Something stinks about this story.

Maybe she meant they were stolen in Puerto Rico?

Sometime last week, this woman told ICE/police her boyfriend was gone.

Do they really expect to find him now?

azwreath wrote:

Owning a vehicle and legally being able to drive it are two seperate things.

I know many older folks, as well as some disabled folks, who own vehicles even though someone else does the driving for them.

As for financing a vehicle, that's simple enough as well. Again, one does not need a driver's license to buy /own a car.

And, while it would be great to require anyone purchasing and/or registering a vehicle to have a license, such a thing would do harm to Americans and legal immigrants who cannot, or do not wish to, drive.

So, we need to come up with another solution.

When I moved to a new state, I had to get my driver's license before they let me register my car. Checked the DMV site and like you said, no proof of a drivers license is required to register a vehicle.

Insurance companies require driver's license numbers on their forms but if one doesn't purchase insurance thats no good either. None of the articles I have seen about this incident have mentioned the word insurance.
[i]
“Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.â€

MyAmerican - that's a good point. States vary in how they require or handle the license vs. registration vs. insurance process.
The mention of insurance in all this has been conspicuously absent.

bttt

Added to Home PAge
http://www.alipac.us/article2999.html

Was a Employers background check needed on that van ? was it skipped ? that would have said ID , SS # mismatched