Smugglers sentenced for journey that remaining 3 sisters dead
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SAN DIEGO (AP) — Two smugglers were being sentenced to federal prison on Friday for foremost a few sisters from Mexico into California, where by they froze to death in a mountain snowstorm.
Cecilio Rios-Quiñones, 38, and his brother, 23-year-aged Ricardo Rios-Quiñones, received 5 1/2 yrs each individual in U.S. District Court docket in San Diego.
They pleaded responsible final calendar year to conspiracy and other rates.
Prosecutors stated the gentlemen, who are from Chihuahua, led the females throughout the border on Feb. 10, 2020, and ended up in a rugged area around Mount Laguna, about a dozen miles north of the border, when a snowstorm struck. The girl, from Oaxaca, died from hypothermia.
The ladies, who came from weak rural spots and were in search of superior life, lacked appropriate clothing or materials for a journey of a number of times via rain and snow, authorities explained.
Defense lawyers argued that the brothers ended up only compensated to be guides and hadn’t anticipated this kind of serious weather. They huddled with the gals, attempting to hold them heat, and a person eventually hiked down the mountain to locate a place for cellphone reception to phone 911, attorneys mentioned.
A U.S. Border Patrol search and rescue unit observed Margarita Santos Arce, 32 and Paula Santos Arce, 29, useless. Juana Santos Arce, 35, died later on.
“It is tragic that an individual desires to appear in this article to function and dies, but it is additional tragic that there are individuals who benefit from this, who take care of them like cargo,” U.S. District Decide Cathy Ann Bencivengo mentioned at the sentencing.
Cecilio Rios-Quiñones is regretful and “will permanently stay with the guilt of obtaining been portion of a legal act that killed a few women,” his attorney, Michelle Betancourt, wrote in a sentencing memo, in accordance to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
“I am a gentleman of faith and I am extremely remorseful for what I did,” Ricardo Rios-Quiñones wrote in a letter to the choose. “We weren’t well prepared for the storm and I would have by no means participated in this if I would have acknowledged a person would close up hurt or lifeless.”
