Man convicted of human smuggling gets prison

BY JAMES GILBERT, SUN STAFF WRITER
Dec 1, 2005

A Mexican national who tried to smuggle 29 illegal aliens to California nearly four months ago was sentenced to prison Thursday.

Pedro Velazquez, 20, of Los Angeles and Mexico, was sentenced in Yuma County Superior Court to 20 years in prison with credit for 84 days previously served for smuggling.

Chief Criminal Deputy County Attorney Roger Nelson said Velazquez may possibly have been the first person in Arizona to be sentenced under a newly enacted state law against human trafficking.

"There are a couple of other counties that have similar cases," Nelson said. "If we are not the first county to sentence someone under the new law, we are one of the first."

Velazquez was also the first person in Yuma County to be charged under the new state law.

Superior Court Judge Andrew Gould, who presided over the brief hearing, told Velazquez and his court-appointed attorney, Vida Florez, that he intended to impose the presumptive sentence for the crime, and asked if they had anything to say before sentencing.

"My client asks for a lesser sentence because he did not know how many illegal aliens were in the car," Florez said.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, 28 out of 29 counts of human smuggling and one count of unlawful flight from pursuing law enforcement officers against Velazquez were dismissed.

Velazquez, an illegal alien from Mexico whose identity hasn't been confirmed yet, admitted that he picked up the vehicle and illegal aliens in Yuma and was planning to transport them to Los Angeles, but he didn't say for how much. He also said the person he worked for told him not to stop for police, according to court records.

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