Smuggler Pleads Guilty in Deaths of 14 Immigrants

A man who brought a group of illegal immigrants across the U.S.-Mexican border, leading 14 of them to their deaths in the southern Arizona desert, pleaded guilty Thursday to 25 smuggling counts.

Jesus Lopez-Ramos, a 20-year-old Mexican national from Guadalajara, had been scheduled to go on trial Nov. 6 but changed his plea during a hearing before U.S. District Judge Susan R. Bolton.

A federal grand jury on May 28 indicted Lopez-Ramos on 14 counts of illegal immigrant smuggling that resulted in death and on 11 counts of illegal immigrant smuggling that resulted in serious bodily injury or placed the immigrants’ lives in jeopardy.

The group was discovered by U.S. Border Patrol agents May 23 in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in dry, bleak terrain southeast of Yuma known as the Devil’s Path.

Eleven of the immigrants survived after being treated for severe dehydration and related kidney damage.

Prosecutors said they have decided against seeking the death penalty in the case. Lopez-Ramos could face up to 10 years in prison on each count when he’s sentenced Jan. 15.

“The maximum sentence you will be looking at is life in prison,” Bolton told Lopez-Ramos, who does not speak English and had an interpreter next to him in court.

Lopez-Ramos changed his plea despite not having a plea agreement with prosecutors.

Federal public defender Gerald A. Williams, who represented Lopez-Ramos, declined to comment on the plea.

According to federal investigators, Lopez-Ramos was one of three guides working for a smuggling ring who led a group of about 30 illegal immigrants from Sonoyta, Mexico, into the United States on May 19.

The immigrants brought their own water and each paid the smugglers $1,400 for the illegal trek. They were told the trip would take only two days to complete and that they would walk at night to avoid detection and the searing desert sun.

Lopez-Ramos told authorities he had successfully navigated the desert several times before, and he was to be paid $100 for each immigrant he delivered to a highway north of Ajo, Ariz.

But this time, Lopez-Ramos said the group got lost and ran out of water during the second day.

One guide and three immigrants turned back and returned to Mexico.

On the morning of the third day, Lopez-Ramos and another guide told those remaining that they would go to get water. They took $90 from the men, promised to return and told the immigrants to stay put.

The immigrants said they started walking when the smugglers didn’t return and resorted to drinking their urine and trying to get what little moisture they could from cactuses to stay alive.

The first people the Border Patrol found were 30 miles from their intended destination, where they were to have been driven to Phoenix for transportation to Illinois and Florida.

The immigrants were suffering from severe dehydration and heat exposure after spending more than four days in temperatures reaching 115 degrees.

Lopez-Ramos and another guide walked about 18 miles over the next 24 hours and “my companion got sick and fell. I also got sick and could not continue,” Lopez-Ramos told the court Thursday. “Immigration [agents] found me and took me to the hospital.”

Lopez-Ramos had made it within five miles of Interstate 8 in Yuma. The other guide, identified by authorities only as “Lauro,” was found dead nearby.

Prosecutors said Lopez-Ramos and the other guide worked on behalf of a Mexico-based smuggler who has since been identified as Evodio Manilla-Cabrera.

Cabrera was indicted by a federal grand jury here Sept. 18 on immigrant smuggling charges, but Arizona authorities won’t discuss his case or say if he’s in custody.

“That’s an ongoing part of our investigation,” U.S. Atty. Paul Charlton said Thursday. “We plan to continue with our investigation and prosecution.”