TX Nat'l Guard charged with smuggling illegal immigrants across TX border

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/us/13texas.html

Answers Sought in Guard Smuggling Case


By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
Published: June 13, 2007

HOUSTON, June 12 — A soldier awarded a Purple Heart for service in Iraq and two other Texas National Guardsmen charged with human smuggling remained in jail in Laredo on Tuesday as federal authorities expanded their investigation into how 24 illegal immigrants wound up in a Guard-leased van deep into Texas.


The three guardsmen — Sgt. Julio Cesar Pacheco, 25, of Laredo, identified by his lawyer as a wounded veteran of the Iraq war; Sgt. Clarence Hodge Jr. 36, of Fort Worth; and Pfc. Jose Rodrigo Torres, 26, of Laredo — were arrested last week after the immigrants were found in a van driven by Private Torres, according to a complaint filed in Federal District Court in Laredo.

The complaint said cellphone text messages among the men implicated them in a smuggling operation, but it did not say how the immigrants were delivered to them across the Mexican border.

Donald J. DeGabrielle Jr., the United States attorney for the Southern District of Texas, who announced the arrests Monday, said Tuesday that there was “no suggestion of other National Guard involvement at this point.” Mr. DeGabrielle declined to say whether the investigation was focusing on a group of Mexican traffickers, or coyotes, who commonly guide illegal immigrants across the border for money, but other smuggling cases prosecuted by his office have detailed such operations.

Mr. DeGabrielle, in an interview, said he could not yet say if any of the guardsmen were on duty at the time and if so, who was supervising them. “That’s part of the investigation,” he said.

In an unrelated corruption case prosecuted by the United States attorney’s office, a former Border Patrol agent, William J. Ferrone, 42, was sentenced Tuesday in Laredo to 16 months in prison after pleading guilty to transporting 11 illegal immigrants in his vehicle last year.

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