The driver of a van that was packed with people who paid $1,500 to $2,500 to be smuggled into the United States was sentenced Wednesday in Denver to 21 months in prison.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Mackey said Jorge Apolinar Bernal-Estrada, 28, will be deported to his native Mexico after he serves his sentence and could face up to 20 years in prison if he re-enters the country illegally.
Bernal-Estrada was driving the van on Interstate 70 in Kit Carson County on March 14 when it spun out of control on an icy stretch, went off the interstate and overturned.
The 13 passengers said they had paid someone to get them out of Mexico to Phoenix, where they were hiding in a safe house until they were picked up by Bernal-Estrada, who was to take them to New York and New Jersey.
The occupants identified Bernal- Estrada as the driver.
One passenger, Imelda Martinez, suffered back injuries that required hospitalization.
Bernal-Estrada pleaded guilty to transportation of illegal immigrants.
Documents found in the van showed that the defendant had driven the van from the Western United States to Florida and back to Arizona, where the passengers were picked up.
Edward Pluss, Bernal-Estrada’s lawyer, said there is a whole network of “coyotes,” people who drive illegal immigrants across the United States. They pick up Mexicans smuggled across the border to safe houses in Arizona.
“But it is not really clear that my client was in the habit of doing that, and it was not clear he was receiving money or did this more than once,” Pluss said.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
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