Man gets 24 years in railcar deaths case

Centre Daily

Associated Press

HOUSTON - The accused leader of a smuggling ring was sentenced Monday to more than 24 years in prison for his role in the train car deaths of 11 illegal immigrants in 2002.

Juan Fernando Licea-Cedillo bought information about train schedules from a former Union Pacific train conductor so he could know when to put immigrants on trains northbound from the Rio Grande Valley.

Earlier this month Licea-Cedillo tried to withdraw his guilty plea to conspiring to transport and harbor illegal immigrants, but U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt on Monday determined his plea would stand and handed down a term of 24 years and four months.

Hoyt also sentenced the former conductor, Arnulfo Flores Jr., 35, to three years and five months in prison. He had pleaded guilty to conspiring to transport illegal immigrants.

Prosecutors say Licea-Cedillo, 28, from Mexico, led an international smuggling ring from January 2000 through February 2003, charging up to $1,000.

On June 15, 2002, 11 mostly Central American immigrants were loaded into a grain hopper in Harlingen. It couldn't be opened from the inside.

Prosecutors said Licea-Cedillo lost track of the rail car after Border Patrol agents raided the train, but the trapped immigrants escaped detection and the train continued north. Shortly thereafter, they died of dehydration and hypothermia.

The rail car sat in a storage facility near Oklahoma City for four months, and was then sent to Denison, Iowa. A cleaning crew there discovered the mostly skeletonized remains. It took about seven months before the victims were identified through DNA tests.

Licea-Cedillo pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge last year, but tried to withdraw his plea, claiming his lawyers didn't explain to him the consequences. He told the judge through an interpreter he didn't know he would be held responsible for the deaths.

Licea-Cedillo and Flores were among four members of the ring indicted on charges of smuggling and hiding illegal immigrants. The other two, both from Mexico, remain fugitives.