When the FBI Comes Calling…®
December 22, 2004
Two Men Continue Awaiting Fate In Smuggling Trial
The feeling that the longer a jury deliberates, the better it is for defendants might not apply in the first trial connected to the nation's deadliest human smuggling attempt, according to an attorney who specializes in federal criminal defense.
Jurors resumed deliberations Wednesday on the fate of two men prosecutors say were part of a smuggling ring responsible for the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants.
The jury has deliberated for about 6 and a half hours on both Monday and Tuesday. It got the case late Thursday, then took Friday and the weekend off.
Victor Jesus Rodriguez and Fredy Giovanni Garcia-Tobar are accused of helping arrange for the transport of more than 70 illegal immigrants in a hot, airless tractor-trailer from South Texas to Houston in May 2003.
Sheriff's deputies found the bodies at about 2:15 a.m. on May 14, 2003, when they answered a 911 call about a reported disturbance inside a refrigerated trailer at the Speedy Stop truck stop, six miles south of Victoria on U.S. Highway 77.
Each man faces 58 counts of harboring and transporting illegal immigrants. If convicted, each could get up to life in prison.
The ongoing deliberations "may just mean the jury is being careful in wanting to do the right thing," said Douglas McNabb, a Houston attorney not connected with the trial who specializes in federal criminal defense.
The trailer full of immigrants was abandoned at a truck stop near Victoria, about 100 miles southwest of Houston, after the immigrants began succumbing to the heat inside. Seventeen people were found dead at the site. Two died later.
Garcia-Tobar, 25, from Guatemala, is accused of helping load them into trailers or transport them to loading sites and of helping recruit truckers to haul them. Rodriguez, 38, is accused of picking up several immigrants.
Defense attorneys say their clients either did not have direct responsibility for putting the immigrants in the trailer or were accused by unreliable witnesses.
Tyrone Williams of Schenectady, N.Y., accused of driving and abandoning the trailer, is the only one of 14 indicted defendants who could face the death penalty if convicted. His trial is set to begin Jan. 5.
Williams' attorney has accused prosecutors of choosing his client for the first death sentence prosecution in an immigrant-smuggling case because he is black.
Prosecutors say that Williams faces such a punishment because he alone had the power to release the immigrants from the trailer.
The trial judge dismissed charges Thursday against a third defendant, Claudia Carrizales de Villa, 36, saying prosecutors had failed to prove the case against her.
The trial of another defendant is on hold. Five others previously pleaded guilty. Four were arrested in Mexico and face trial there, including Rodriguez's parents.
This article can also be found in the Plainview Daily Herald, Denton Record Chronicle, Fort Worth Star Telegram, WFAA and ClicktoHouston.com.