When the FBI Comes Calling…®

January 18, 2006

By JUAN A. LOZANO Associated Press Writer

Jury selection begins in Texas smuggling deaths (part 3)

HOUSTON (AP) _ Opening statements are set for Thursday following jury selection in the trial of three alleged members of a ring federal prosecutors say was responsible for the nation's deadliest human smuggling attempt.

Victor Sanchez Rodriguez; his wife, Emma Sapata Rodriguez; and Rosa Sarrata Gonzalez, Sapata's half-sister, will be tried on charges of harboring and transporting illegal immigrants after a 2003 smuggling attempt that killed 19 immigrants. If convicted, all three could face up to life in prison.

A jury of nine men and three women, plus two alternates, was chosen Wednesday afternoon following a four-hour process that was to have begun in the morning. The selection was delayed as the defendants decided whether jurors or U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore would determine their guilt or innocence.

The trial, the third connected to the smuggling deaths, is expected to last three weeks. More than 70 people were being transported in an airtight tractor-trailer from South Texas to Houston when they began to succumb to the deadly heat inside. Seventeen people died of dehydration, overheating and suffocation. Two died later.

The truck driver, Tyrone Williams, abandoned the trailer in Victoria, about 100 miles southwest of Houston. Williams, the only defendant facing the death penalty, was convicted in March 2005 of 38 counts of transporting illegal immigrants, all non-death penalty counts. Prosecutors want to retry Williams on all 58 counts he faced and thus have another shot at getting a death sentence for him. An appeal is pending.

Prosecutors say Williams, a Jamaican citizen who lived in Schenectady, N.Y., worked for a smuggling ring that included Sanchez, Sapata and Sarrata.

Sanchez, 58, and Sapata, 59, are accused of operating one of three smuggling cells from their home in Brownsville. Sarrata, 51, from San Benito, Texas, worked for one of the other cells, according to prosecutors.

The three fled to Mexico following the trailer's discovery, authorities said. They were later arrested and held there on similar smuggling charges.

In February 2005, a Mexican federal judge dismissed the case, and the three _ all U.S. citizens _ were returned to the United States.

All three face 58 counts of harboring and transporting illegal immigrants. Sanchez and Sapata also face two additional counts on an accusation they held for ransom the 3-year-old son of a Honduran woman who survived the smuggling attempt.

Because of a gag order, neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys are commenting on the case. Douglas McNabb, a Houston attorney who specializes in federal criminal defense, said the defendants will have a hard time countering the expected testimony of some of the survivors, who will offer compelling details about their ordeal inside the trailer.

''The defense strategy has got to be able to convey to the jury that deaths occurred, someone did it, but their clients weren't responsible,'' McNabb said. In all, 14 people were indicted in the case.

Of the other defendants, two, including Sanchez and Sapata's son, were convicted of various smuggling charges, two had charges dismissed, five others previously pleaded guilty and one man remains a fugitive.


This article can also be found in the Bryan College Station Eagle, KRIS-TV TX, Denton Record Chronicle, Click 2 Houston.com, Houston Chronicle, Forth Worth Star Telegram, and Tyler Morning Telegraph.