Last of 6 Smugglers in Ring Is Sentenced : Courts: They were convicted of secretly bringing in aliens from Mexico and holding them for ransom. They were prosecuted under a law designed to combat international terrorism.

A Pomona man was sentenced to five years in federal prison Tuesday, completing the successful prosecution of a ring that smuggled undocumented immigrants from central Mexico to Southern California and held them for ransom.

Moises Barraza Armenta, 20, was the last of six people to be sentenced after prosecutors used for the first time a federal hostage-taking law designed to combat international terrorism to win stiff sentences for a crime committed inside the United States.

“Previously, the law was used in prosecutions related to international terrorism to protect U.S. citizens who became hostage victims while overseas,” said U.S. Atty. Lourdes Baird.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Manuel Real issued sentences ranging from five to 19 years for the other five defendants in the case, which was investigated by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Los Angeles Police Department.

The longest sentence--19 years--was meted out to Cain Barajas Arredondo, 33, who was described as the leader of the smuggling ring. He was convicted of conspiracy, illegally transporting aliens, illegally concealing aliens, hostage taking and using a firearm in a crime of violence.

The hostage-taking law, enacted in 1984, imposes stiff sentences, which can include life imprisonment, on people who seize and threaten individuals’ lives to compel a third person to pay ransom as a condition of release, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Thomas P. Sleisenger, who prosecuted the case.

Sleisenger said evidence introduced at trial showed that Barajas and his co-defendants organized an alien-smuggling operation that transported people from Mexico to Pomona where they were held involuntarily until friends or relatives paid a delivery fee.

In this case, Sleisenger said, two people escaped before the fees were paid when they were being dropped off in Hollywood.

“In the course of getting out of the car, they ran behind an apartment complex with the assistance of friends who were there at the time of arrival,” Sleisenger said.

To compel relatives to pay for the men who escaped, Barajas and two of the other defendants took a relative hostage.

The hostage, Victor Gomez Garcia, was seized in Hollywood, near the escape site. He was taken back to Pomona, “where he was beaten and kicked and numerous threats were made on his life,” Sleisenger said.

The prosecutor said the defendants demanded that the hostage’s brother, Jorge Gomez Garcia, pay a $1,500 ransom--well in excess of the initial delivery fee of $300.

The brother gave Los Angeles police a phone number of the Pomona location. Police officers and INS agents pinned down the location and arrested the defendants in Pomona last September. Also convicted were Jaime Ortiz Marquez, 20, and Sergio Peral Cota, 25, both of whom received 12-year sentences; Maria Bonnilla Guillen, 28, who managed the apartment buildings where the aliens were held in Pomona, five years, and Ivan Linarez Raygoza, five years.

Defense attorneys did not return calls Tuesday seeking comment.