Published: 12.21.2006

Mexican man sentenced for taking illegal immigrants cross country
By JIM SUHR
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. - For the second time in three days, a federal judge on Thursday sentenced to federal prison a Mexican man caught transporting a vehicle crammed with fellow illegal immigrants looking for work.

U.S. District Judge David Herndon sentenced Juan Arias-Ramirez, 23, to 1 1/2 years in prison to be followed by two years of supervised release, if he is not deported.

Arias-Ramirez pleaded guilty in August to 11 counts of transporting illegal aliens - one for each of the Mexican nationals found packed in a van Arias-Ramirez was driving when it was stopped by authorities in June in Bond County.

Federal authorities said the van was taking the passengers from Phoenix to Indianapolis and the Chicago area, where they were to work.

Arias-Ramirez declined through an interpreter Thursday to address Herndon. The judge sentenced the man to the lower end of the federal sentencing guideline range of 18 months to two years on the charges.

The counts carried a maximum punishment of 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.

Renee Schooley, Arias-Ramirez's federal public defender, said that charges have "very much upset" her client, who wanted to return to Mexico. "I believe the government has got Mr. Ramirez's attention," she told Herndon.

Schooley also noted Arias-Ramirez had no criminal record - something Gabriel Ortiz-Castaneda could not claim for himself when he was sentenced Tuesday by Herndon to two years and nine months in federal prison in a similar case.

Federal grand jurors indicted Ortiz-Castaneda in March, 16 days after authorities said they found him near Collinsville driving a van that had journeyed from Phoenix with 19 illegal immigrants from Mexico. The passengers were bound for Georgia and North Carolina, ostensibly to look for work, federal authorities said.

In pleading guilty, Ortiz-Castaneda - who apparently has crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally at least two dozen times - said he knew the van's occupants were in the country unlawfully and were bound for Georgia and North Carolina to look for work.

In both cases, many of the passengers crammed into the vans were not wearing seat belts and were forced to sit on the floorboards of a vehicle _ conditions Herndon noted put that at "substantial risk" of death or serious bodily injury.

Such cases have proven deadly. Just last month in New Mexico, an illegal immigrant smuggler was sentenced to eight years in prison on charges tied to the crash of an Atlanta-bound sport utility vehicle he packed with a dozen people, including four Mexican nationals killed in the wreck.

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/161409


[b]This man got 3 times the sentence for his crime!/[b]
Published: 12.21.2006

Man sent to prison for killing Chihuahua during fight with wife
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PRESCOTT - A Prescott man who killed his wife's Chihuahua after she threatened to leave him has been sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison.

A jury convicted Timothy Gonzalez, 28, earlier this month of felony animal cruelty and criminal impersonation and a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge.

Before his sentencing Wednesday, Gonzalez asked the judge for leniency and asked his wife to forgive him.

"I'm sorry for what happened and I'm sorry for what I did," Gonzalez said. "I didn't mean to kill Eddy."

He said that he couldn't stand the thought that his wife didn't love him and that she might be leaving him for good.

The charges were more about domestic violence than animal cruelty, prosecutor Ethan Wolfinger said at trial.

According to police reports, Gonzalez raised the couple's Chihuahua, "Eddy" over his head and threw him to the ground as his wife got in a car to leave their home, then flung the dog to the ground a second time. As his wife was trying to leave, Gonzalez threw the dog onto the hood of her car, where it hit the hood and the windshield, and rolled off onto the ground.

Yavapai County Superior Court Judge William Kiger sentenced Gonzalez to the prison term, saying probation would be inappropriate even if it were available.

He must serve 80 percent of the sentence, more than three years.

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/161410