Immigrant Held in Crash That Killed 7

A 19-year-old illegal immigrant was charged in San Diego federal court Thursday with being one of the smugglers behind an incident that ended in a crash that killed seven people and injured 19 others.

Fernando Covarrubias-Varela admitted that he was one of the smugglers in the truck but denied that he was the driver, according to U.S. Atty. Alan Bersin. Covarrubias-Varela was charged with transporting illegal immigrants, a felony.

He said he was paid $200 to help guide a stolen pickup truck crammed with illegal immigrants from near Tecate to Los Angeles, Bersin said. The truck, being followed by a U.S. Border Patrol car, crashed outside Temecula near dawn Saturday.

Covarrubias-Varela said he was hired by a smuggler in Tijuana known to him only as “El Oso” (the Bear) to lead a group of illegal immigrants across the border. “El Oso,” according to Covarrubias-Varela, remained in Tijuana.

An investigation into the crash by state and federal officials has centered on finding the driver and the smuggler and determining if the smuggler is part of a ring.

Covarrubias-Varela is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown San Diego pending a hearing Tuesday. Prosecutors will ask that he be detained without bail pending the trial.

He said he was in the back of the pickup and that a second smuggler hired by “El Oso” to get the illegal immigrants to Los Angeles was in the cab beside the driver. He said he did not know the names of the driver or the other smuggler, officials said.

Covarrubias-Varela spent three days in the hospital with facial injuries before being released Tuesday and immediately being taken into custody by the anti-smuggling unit of the Border Patrol for questioning.

As part of a crackdown on illegal immigration, federal authorities have targeted smugglers for prosecution. The effort suffered a setback this week when a San Diego judge refused to invoke an untested 1994 law against a smuggler involved in a high-speed crash that killed three people in eastern San Diego County in 1995.

The law calls for penalties up to life in prison for smugglers involved in incidents where people are endangered, injured or killed.

Meanwhile Thursday, the bodies of six of the seven who died in the Temecula crash, including three brothers--were flown home.

The pickup--carrying 26 people--crashed after the driver lost control on a back road, apparently trying to detour around the Border Patrol checkpoint on nearby Interstate 15.

The pickup was seen near Fallbrook by Border Patrol agents, who began to tail it and discovered that it was stolen.

The officers alerted the California Highway Patrol by radio and were about half a mile behind the pickup when it crested a hill, accelerated and overturned, landing upside-down in a shallow gully.

Seven people died at the scene. All 19 survivors were hospitalized with injuries. Twelve have been released and the other seven remain at Riverside General Hospital.

The two in the most critical condition are an unidentified man with severe brain injuries and a 29-year-old man from Tlaxco, Mexico, who is paralyzed from the neck down, a hospital spokesman said.

To try to pinpoint the driver, investigators have been looking for such evidence as injuries consistent with sitting behind the steering wheel and foot imprints on the brake and accelerator pedals, according to Julie Page, spokeswoman for the California Highway Patrol.

But authorities said it is not unusual for the driver of a truck or van crammed with illegal immigrants not to be the smuggler.

“As a general rule, the smuggler will have one of the illegal [immigrants] drive the vehicle as their way of paying his part of the trip, so if something goes wrong, the driver is held responsible, not the smuggler,” said Border Patrol spokesman Ron Henley. “He’ll ask his crowd, ‘Can anyone drive?’ ”

The cause of the accident also remains under investigation, with CHP specialists studying such factors as the loaded truck’s weight and brakes, Page said. It is also unclear why the driver accelerated because the Border Patrol officers were not chasing the pickup.

The survivors who have been released were allowed by the Border Patrol to remain in the United States to assist authorities in the investigation, Henley said, but some returned to Mexico anyway and the CHP says it is having difficulty tracking down the others to clarify conflicting witness statements.

The dead included brothers Benjamin, Jaime and Salvador Chavez Munoz--33, 21 and 19, respectively--of Cheran, in the state of Michoacan, according to the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles.

Also killed were Leodegaroi Aviles Varela, 42; Felipe Arias Bautista, 31; Tirso Ocampo Franco, 25, and Ramon Ayala Vargas, 22.

The crash was one of the worst in California involving a single passenger vehicle, authorities say. The highest death toll came in 1994, when a pickup carrying 20 illegal immigrants crashed near Barstow, killing 12, after the driver fell asleep at the wheel.