A teenager whose business was driving people from New Mexico to New York pleaded guilty on May 7 in U.S. District Court, White Plains, to transporting illegal aliens.
Mario Elpidio Chavez Millan, 19, of Chihuahua, Mexico and Albuquerque, New Mexico worked with Mexican “coyotes” to smuggle people into the United States for fees ranging from $10,000 to $18,000 per person, according to court records.
Chavez also admitted to participating in a kidnapping scheme while carrying out his role in a human trafficking operation, according to a press release issued by U.S. Attorney Damian Williams.
He got caught last July in Cortlandt after a relative of one of his passengers alerted state police that Chavez would not release the individual unless he was paid an additional $1,000.
State police told the relative to arrange the payment and set up a meeting with the driver, according to a probable cause affidavit filed by an FBI agent who works with the Westchester Safe Streets Task Force.
The relative set up an electronic payment and then met Chavez in a parking lot in Cortlandt. When the payment cleared, Chavez allowed the passenger to get out of the car and he drove away.
State police stopped the car and found five more passengers.
The individual whose relative tipped off state police entered the United States by climbing over a wall in Juarez, Mexico and then making a deal to be driven to Cortlandt.
Along the way, Chavez told the individual that he would not be released unless another $1,000 was paid, according to the affidavit. Chavez boasted that he had killed someone for running away without paying, and he took the passenger’s phone to deter escape.
The other passengers also entered the United States at the southern border and met Chavez in New Mexico. Three passengers told police that they were told to pay an additional $1,000 and heard Chavez’s boast of killing someone. Two passengers said they were not told to pay extra.
Chavez admitted to police “that he understood that the service he provides aids cartels and coyotes in smuggling illegal aliens into the country,” according to the probable cause affidavit. He admitted telling the passengers that he had killed someone for not paying his fee. His statement was meant as a joke, he claimed, but he acknowledged that the passengers took his words as a threat.
Assistant prosecutor David A. Markewitz argued during a bail hearing last July that Chavez should not be allowed to post bail because he posed a flight risk and a danger to the community. He has no legal status here, no ties to the community, he is facing a substantial prison term, and he works with “coyotes” who could help him flee to Mexico.
He was just a driver, not a mastermind or enforcer, defense attorney Benjamin Gold told U.S. Magistrate Judge Victoria Reznik at the bail hearing. He has no incentive to flee to Mexico because “coyotes and cartels there will likely think that he got out of jail be cooperating and by hurting their enterprise.”
He argued that Chavez “is a teenager who’s here in this country working more than most people his age to support his family.” He works in construction and sends about $1,500 a month to his mother and grandmother in Mexico. He can stay with cousins in New Mexico.
“Mr. Chavez wants to work in this country,” Gold stated. “He actually still hopes to be able to become a lawful resident of this country.”
“If he wanted to be a citizen of the country so badly,” Markewitz responded, “he wouldn’t be out there committing crimes.”
Judge Reznik approved a $100,000 appearance bond and allowed him to live with a relative in New Mexico while the case is pending. She restricted where he could travel and ordered him to surrender his passport and submit to electronic monitoring.
The prosecution appealed the decision. On July 26 U.S. District Judge Philip M. Halpern ordered that Chavez be detained pending trial, “on the grounds that he presents a risk of flight.”
Now Chavez is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Vincent L. Briccetti on Aug 7 on one count of conspiring to transport aliens throughout the United States. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
