Overhaulin'

Lawyer says client was only providing a service to the undocumented migrant farm workers do U agree R $$$$?

Lawyer says client was only providing a service to the undocumented migrant farm workers do U agree R was it for $$$$ ? A Guatemalan national who says he fled political persecution and a threat of execution in his native country to start a new life in America was sentenced Thursday to 2-1/2 years in federal prison for selling hundreds of out-of-state license plates to illegal immigrants on the Eastern Shore. Authorities said at a sentencing hearing Thursday that they have linked 56 automobile accidents, including five fatalities, to vehicles with license plates sold by the defendant, Felipe Jesus Mazariegos-Perez, 44. The operation, which Mazariegos-Perez ran from his trailer in Nelsonia in Accomack County for at least six years, netted him more than $200,000, an estimate the U.S. attorney's office says is conservative. The authorities, including the FBI, the Virginia State Police and immigration agents, found only a little more than $2,000 in the trailer when they arrested Mazariegos-Perez and his wife earlier this year. They don't know where the rest of the money went. Mazariegos-Perez's wife, Elvia Elizabel Soto-Ortiz, 26, was sentenced Thursday to nine months in prison for her role in the scheme. The couple, both of whom face deportation, have five American-born children who will now be living with relatives, the attorneys in the case said. Based in part on a Virginian-Pilot investigation in 2005, the authorities launched their own inquiry into the heightened number of vehicles with out-of-state plates, mostly from Tennessee and Mississippi, involved in serious crashes. While investigating a prostitution ring on the Eastern Shore, the authorities were able to get informants to record conversations with Mazariegos-Perez and his wife about the sales of license plates. After Virginia tightened its vehicle registration requirements, making it difficult for illegal immigrants to title cars, the migrant workers turned to states such as Tennessee, Mississippi, North Carolina and Georgia where it was easier to register cars under phony names. Mazariegos-Perez would drive to those states to buy the plates. In many of the crashes, the drivers and passengers fled the scene, leaving no way for state troopers to trace the driver or vehicle owner. more @http://hamptonroads.com/2008/12/man-gets-30-months-selling-license-plates-illegals

Public Comments

1. Oh yea, an illegal service.
2. But none of them break the laws or skirt the laws do they? Right! An illegal service where they also obtained license plates illegally by using phony names. I think that if they are deporting mum and dad, that the kids should be required to go with them.
3. Does that mean if a person was to blow holes in the heads of illegal aliens (or lawyers for that matter) that it would be Ok as it is only a service for the American taxpayer? Or maybe the unregistered pharmacist is actually just providing a service to drug addicts?
4. well, crushes are irrelevant to this case. the cars didnt get into accidents because they had phony plates, did they??? and there probably are many more out there, who know how to drive...
5. Where are all the illegal lovers with their catch phrases-"They're just trying to feed their family" "they do the jobs lazy americans won't do" "less crimes in areas with illegals" "living in the shadows, afraid of being deported" This article just proves that they have no morals, no respect for the law, and they will do what ever it takes to get what they want. After all the chances of them being caught are slim (no one really knows who they are). And if it gets a little "tight" they can go back home and sneak in with a new identity. Illegals are vulnerable to exploitation and their "own kind" are the worst offenders. example-coyotes FYI-those 5 anchor babies living in the US will still receive State and Fed funds. The relatives will not be expected to provide financial support as they are not the children's parents.