When the FBI Comes Calling…®
November 29, 2004
First smuggling deaths trial scheduled to begin
More than 1 year after 19 immigrants died after being packed in a sweltering trailer, the first trial connected to the nation's deadliest human smuggling attempt was set to begin today in federal court.
Victor Jesus Rodriguez, Claudia Carrizales de Villa and Fredy Giovanni Garcia-Tobar each face a total of 58 counts of harboring and transporting illegal immigrants. Each could get up to life in prison if convicted.
Jury selection was to begin this afternoon in the trial, which could last up to a month.
Prosecutors say the three were part of a smuggling ring that tried to transport a group of more than 70 immigrants inside a tractor trailer during a trip from South Texas to Houston that began on the evening of May 13, 2003.
Packed inside the trailer, which had little ventilation, the immigrants from Mexico, Central America and the Dominican Republic began succumbing to the stifling temperatures, which authorities estimate reached 173 degrees.
Early the next morning, the trailer was abandoned at a truck stop near Victoria, about 100 miles southwest of Houston. Authorities found 17 immigrants dead inside the trailer. Two others later died.
Douglas McNabb, a Houston attorney not connected with the trial who specializes in federal criminal defense, said it will probably be an easier case for prosecutors because of the number of deaths involved.
"You are going to see the government argue (the 19 immigrants) ... were taken advantage of by these defendants," he said.
The victims, including a 5-year-old Mexican boy, died from dehydration, hyperthermia and suffocation.
Carrizales, 36, from Mexico, is accused of harboring immigrants in her apartment and feeding them at a small restaurant in Harlingen owned by the alleged ringleader of the smuggling operation, Karla Patricia Chavez, who pleaded guilty in the case in June.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Rodriguez during a court hearing last week called Carrizales "the right arm for Karla Chavez," saying she was familiar with every aspect of the smuggling operation.
But Ali Reza Fazel, Carrizales' attorney, said his client was not a major player in the operation.
"They are arguing she harbored (immigrants). We're arguing she did not," Fazel said during the court hearing. Carrizales "is a very limited person in the conspiracy."
Garcia-Tobar, a 25-year-old from Guatemala, is accused of working with Chavez to pick up immigrants across the border and help recruit truckers, including Williams, to haul them.
Attorneys for Garcia-Tobar were concerned their client might be mentally retarded. But a psychiatrist at a hearing earlier this month testified he was competent.
Tyrone Williams, the Schenectady, N.Y., man who allegedly drove the truck that hauled the immigrants and later abandoned it, is set to go to trial Jan. 5. He is the only one of 14 defendants indicted in the case who could face the death penalty if convicted.
The trial of another defendant is on hold. Five others previously pleaded guilty. Four were arrested in Mexico and face trial there, including the parents of Rodriguez, 38.
He is accused of picking up several immigrants who had arranged with his parents to be smuggled into the country and taking them to a house belonging to his father.
His parents, Victor and Emma Rodriguez, are a Brownsville couple who authorities say ran one of the operation's smuggling cells.
This article can also be found in the Amarillo Globe News.