The leader of a smuggling organization that brought hundreds of undocumented migrants into the United States and was involved in the death of a migrant during a Border Patrol pursuit on Christmas Day 2021 was sentenced Friday to 10 years in federal prison.
U.S. District Judge Cathy Bencivengo said she would have sentenced Felipe de Jesus Rosales-Herrera, 38, to a longer prison term if not for the 10-year maximum tied to his guilty plea for conspiring to transport migrants.
“You traded in human life … (and) lined your own pockets,” Bencivengo said sternly during the hearing in San Diego federal court. “You trafficked in human beings.”
The judge said that even the worst-case scenario for Rosales-Herrera’s organization, the December 2021 death of 52-year-old Gaudencio Gerardo Luna-Vasquez in Jamul, didn’t deter him.
“You don’t have remorse,” the judge said, rejecting Rosales-Herrera’s plea for a shorter sentence and his statements that he was remorseful about Luna-Vasquez’s death.
Rosales-Herrera, himself an undocumented migrant who was living in Anaheim with his wife and five children, will be deported to Mexico when he finishes his prison term. Bencivengo warned him that he’ll face “significant time” in prison if he’s caught in the U.S. or trying to return after he’s deported.
Rosales-Herrera and his attorney said in court and sentencing documents that he had financial struggles and turned to migrant smuggling to provide for his family. Prosecutors said that explanation didn’t match up with his spending habits and lifestyle.
He “made an enormous amount of money” that he spent on a house, multiple sports cars, a speed boat and “tricked out” semi-trailers for his Anaheim-based trucking business, Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Benjamin told the judge.
Benjamin said the boat was wrapped in images of Mexican cartel figures and that Rosales-Herrera had commissioned Mexican folk ballads about his exploits. Rosales-Herrera was a “sophisticated criminal mastermind,” Benjamin said.
Rosales-Herrera first landed on law enforcement’s radar as a potential migrant smuggler in August 2020, when Ohio highway patrol officers stopped a vehicle he was riding in with three other people, including two who had previous convictions for migrant smuggling, according to a search warrant related to the case. Authorities believed the group had either recently dropped off migrants or were scouting smuggling routes along the U.S.-Canada border.
Then in June 2021, Border Patrol agents from the Campo station arrested Jose Luis Alejo-Cruz while he was attempting to smuggle four undocumented migrants across the border, according to a different search warrant. An ensuing investigation revealed Alejo-Cruz was a top lieutenant in Rosales-Herrera’s organization.
On Christmas of that same year, Kevin Antonio Quevedo-Moncada fled from Border Patrol agents after picking up three undocumented migrants near the Otay Mountain Wilderness. Authorities said Quevedo-Moncada drove off “erratically” through the nearby Thousand Trails campground and struck a Border Patrol vehicle blocking the exit.
Prosecutors alleged Quevedo-Moncada was driving up to 93 mph on a winding, dark, rain-slicked road during the ensuing pursuit, which ended when he crashed down an embankment and into a tree off Otay Lakes Road. Luna-Vasquez died at the scene while the two other undocumented migrants were critically injured, including a 19-year-old whose injuries required being placed in a medically-induced coma.
Phones seized from Quevedo-Moncada and the migrants who had been in his vehicle revealed communications with Alejo-Cruz and Rosales-Herrera, according to search warrants. Several other suspected migrant smugglers arrested in the following months in San Diego County also worked for Rosales-Herrera, according to search warrants.
Authorities arrested Rosales-Herrera and Alejo-Cruz in May 2023. At that point, Quevedo-Moncada had already been sentenced to four years and three months in prison for his role in the fatal Christmas crash. Alejo-Cruz was sentenced in February to 10 years in prison. Another man involved in the conspiracy was sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison, while one additional defendant is set to be sentenced in December.
Benjamin, the prosecutor, said everyone else charged in connection with Rosales-Herrera worked under him and only transported migrants in the U.S. once they had crossed the border. But Rosales-Herrera oversaw the drivers on the U.S. side and a “network of foot guides in Mexico,” Benjamin said.
“Everyone worked for him,” the prosecutor told the judge.
Benjamin said that after the fatal crash, Rosales-Herrera and his organization did not change their behavior and continued bringing large numbers of undocumented migrants across the border. He said that recruiters working under Rosales-Herrera told drivers to flee if they were ever stopped by Border Patrol agents, and several drivers did so, resulting in other, non-fatal crashes during those chases.
Benjamin said that it was “just luck” that nobody else was killed during those pursuits.
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