Fourth person accused in immigrant smuggling operation sentenced to prison
Sep. 29—The fourth and final person accused of participating in an immigrant smuggling operation near San Benito has been sentenced to 10 months in federal prison.
Joe Abbott Rodriguez III, of Harlingen, appeared Thursday before U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr., who sentenced him to 10 months in prison to be followed by two years of supervised release.
Federal court documents indicate Rodriguez on Dec. 29, 2021, pleaded guilty to a count of transporting illegal immigrants.
Rodriguez, along with Jose Guadalupe Escobedo, Keyli Castro Ortiz and Walter Palacios Alvarez, were indicted Dec. 7, 2021, on the transporting illegal immigrant charge.
According to a Nov. 15 federal criminal complaint, the group was spotted on Owen Wilson Road and Comfort Street in San Benito after the Homeland Security Investigation agents responded to the area in reference to possible human smuggling.
HSI agents saw a tractor-trailer rig parked in the area and observed several vehicles arrive at the location, where nine people got out of the vehicles and got inside the tractor-trailer's cargo area. "A wad of cash was exchanged" between the driver of one of the vehicles "to the tractor-trailer occupant," according to the complaint.
The vehicles left the location and HSI agents checked the tractor-trailer and found the undocumented immigrants inside it. The agents "coordinated vehicle stops" on two of the vehicles in which Abbott Rodriguez III, Escobedo, Castro Ortiz and Palacios Alvarez were riding in, the criminal complaint states.
According to the criminal complaint, Abbott-Rodriguez III and Escobedo admitted to smuggling the undocumented immigrants for monetary gain.
Castro-Ortiz stated that three of the undocumented immigrants had been "delivered to the home she shares with Walter Palacios-Alvarez that morning and that Palacios told her, "The undocumented immigrants were to be delivered somewhere to be smuggled into the U.S. interior."
Escobedo pleaded guilty to the charge of transporting illegal immigrant on Dec. 22 and was sentenced March 28 to 14 months in federal prison to be followed by two years supervised release.
Castro Ortiz also pleaded guilty to the same charge on Dec. 22 and was sentenced to eight months in federal prison to be followed by two years supervised release.
Palacios Alvarez also pleaded guilty to the same charge Dec. 27 and was sentenced to eight months in federal prison to be followed by two years supervised release.
Federal court documents reflect that Castro Ortiz and Palacios Alvarez do not have permission to be in the United States and will be deported once they finish their prison sentences.
