Woman, 26, Pleads Guilty in Deadly Smuggling Case (19 dead)

[PfcHammer]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/15/national/15smuggle.html

Woman, 26, Pleads Guilty in Deadly Smuggling Case
By KATE ZERNIKE
Published: June 15, 2004

A 26-year-old Honduran immigrant pleaded guilty Monday to being the ringleader of the nation's deadliest smuggling case, which left 19 immigrants dead after being jammed without air or water in a tractor-trailer that was abandoned in South Texas last spring.

The woman, Karla Chávez, was arrested exactly a year ago after fleeing to her childhood home in Honduras on May 14, 2003, the day the bodies were discovered. The driver she hired had heard the immigrants screaming for help soon after crossing a border checkpoint, then, discovering some dead, fled to a Houston emergency room overcome with panic and told the police what had happened.

Prosecutors said that Ms. Chávez, who was herself smuggled into this country at the age of 15 and later worked at a Levi's factory, admitted in a videotaped statement after her arrest to her role in the smuggling case and to smuggling immigrants in four similar trips. She has agreed to cooperate with the United States attorney's office in Houston in prosecuting five remaining defendants in the case, and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.

"In contemporary history, we haven't seen anything worse, so this is a significant guilty plea," said Daniel C. Rodriguez, the assistant United States attorney prosecuting the case in the Southern District of Texas. "We hope she will be capable of providing assistance to find out what other individuals were involved and to ensure that the individuals who have already been indicted are found guilty, and that everything that was done is disclosed."

[tlcandie]

1. Truly sad that people are literally dying to enter the US while soon

it may be the exact opposite. :cry:

[AP]

2. I wish they could convict the economic and political situation

that allows stuff like this to happen and put that in jail.

It's criminal what governments in places like the DR and Honduras and Haiti do which allows corporations to treat these people so miserably in their home countries.

It's criminal to allow the free movement of capital accross borders, but to impede the free movement of labor so that they labor can compete fairly with capital.

And it's also criminal that these people get treated only marginally better when they get to the US.