Minneapolis (AP) – More than three years after four India family froze to death as he tried to cross the United States on a remote section of the Canadian border in Blizzard, two men were sentenced to Minessota on Wednesday on a person’s smuggling of their roles, which prosecutors call international conspiracy.
Federal prosecutors recommended nearly 20 years in prison for the alleged leader, Harshukar Ramalll Patel and nearly 11 years for the driver who had to take the family, Steve Anthony Shand.
The prison terms depends on the District Judge John Tunheim, who refused last month to cancel the guilty sentences, saying: “This was not a close case.”
Tunheim will pass on sentences to the Federal Court of Justice in the northwestern city of Minnesota Fergus Fergs, where the two were tried and sentenced to four charges of the number of last November.
Smuggling operation
During the trial, prosecutors said Patel, an Indian citizen who was said to have gone with the nickname “Dirty Harry”, and Shand, a US citizen from Florida, are part of a complex illegal operation that brought dozens of India people to Student visas and then smuggled them in the US border.
They said the victims, Jagdish Patel, 39; His wife, Vaishaliben, who was in the mid-30’s; Their 11-year-old daughter Vihangi; And a 3-year-old son, Dharmik, froze to death. The Royal Canadian Police found their bodies right north of the border between Manitoba and Minnesota on January 19, 2022.
The family is from a dingec, a village in the western Indian state of Gujarat, as well as Harshukar Patel. Patel is a common Indian surname and the victims were not related to the defendant. The couple were teachers, local news reported. So many peasants have gone abroad in the hope of a better life – legal and other – that many homes there are free.
Raw conditions
The father died as he tried to protect Dharmik’s face from Bubble -Sower with a frozen glove, writes prosecutor Michael McBride. Vihang wore “poorly fitted boots and gloves.” Their mother “died, descending from a chain -linked fence, she must have thought that salvation was a back at the back,” McBride wrote.
Nearby, the meteorological station recorded the wind cold that morning at -36 Fahrenheit (-38 Celsius).
Seven other members of their group survived after passing their feet, but only two reached the Chand’s van, which was stuck in the snow on the side of Minnesota. A woman who survived had to be detached in a hospital with severe frozen and hypothermia. Another survived evidence that he had never seen snow before arriving in Canada. Their inadequate winter clothes were just what the smugglers provided, the survivor told the jurors.
What prosecutors say
“Mr. Patel has never shown remorse. Even today, he continues to deny that he is the” dirty Harry “who worked with Mr. Shand on this smuggling of an endeavor, despite the essential evidence of the opposite and the lawyer of his teammate, who identifies him as such in the process.”
Prosecutors demanded a 19 and 7 -month sentence for Patel, at the top of the recommended scope in accordance with the federal judgments on a sentence for his actions. They demanded that Shand’s sentence be 10 years and 10 months in the middle of his separate directions.
“Even when this family wandered through the blizzard at 1:00 in the morning, looking for Mr. Shand’s van, Mr. Shand was focused on one thing he sent messages to Mr. Patel,” We don’t lose any money, “McBride wrote. “The worse is that when the customs and the border patrol is arrested by Mr. Shand, sitting in a mostly unoccupied 15-pass van, he denied that others were out in the snow, left to freeze without help.”
What do defense lawyers say
Patel’s lawyers, who claim that the evidence is insufficient, did not apply for a sentence until Tuesday. But they asked for a lawyer paid by the government for his planned complaint. Patel was closed after his arrest at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago in February 2024 and asked for no assets without assets.
Shand is free in anticipation of a sentence. The lawyer called him the sentence requested by the government “Unjustified Criminal” and asked for only 27 months. The lawyer, federal defender Aaron Morrison, admitted that Shand has a “guilt level”, but claims that his role is limited – that he is just a taxi driver who needs money to support his wife and six children.
“D, Shand was outside the conspiracy, he did not plan smuggling, he had no authority to make decisions and did not derive the huge financial benefits, as the real conspirators did,” Morrison writes.