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Pair Plead Guilty In Illegal Immigration Case

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TBO.com

Published: August 29, 2008

TAMPA - Two illegal immigrants from Mexico have pleaded guilty to hostage-taking after demanding pay and refusing to release immigrants they had driven from Arizona to Florida.

Inocencio Romero-Gonzalez, 23, pleaded guilty Thursday to hostage-taking and to illegal re-entry of a deported alien.

Romero-Gonzalez and Anastacio Rueda-Flores, 36, pleaded guilty to hostage-taking earlier this month, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

They could face up to life in prison and a $250,000 fine.

According to their plea agreements and the U.S. attorney's office, here's what happened:

Pasco County Sheriff's Office deputies and the Florida Highway Patrol responded to a call alleging a kidnapping. They stopped a van on northbound Interstate 75 near Mile Marker 286 about 2 a.m. May 20.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent who also responded determined all seven occupants of the stopped vehicle were illegal immigrants, and they were taken into administrative custody for processing at the Border Patrol station in Tampa.

Two witnesses, including the 911 caller, told investigators they had met the van at a gas station on State Route 674 west of Interstate 75 in Hillsborough County to pick up the four people being transported in the van.

One witness said that the driver, later identified as Romero-Gonzalez, demanded the witness pay $500 per passenger before they would be released to him. When the witness said he would call police if they did not release the passengers, Romero-Gonzalez told Rueda-Flores to hit the witness. He also told another person, Alejandro Sanchez-Torres, to drive away and then jumped in the van as it sped away.

As it tried to leave, the van hit the witnesses' vehicle. The two witnesses called 911 and followed the van until it was stopped in Pasco County.

The four passengers in the van told investigators they were being driven from Arizona to work in Florida. They said Romero-Gonzalez and Rueda-Flores had driven them from Arizona to Alabama. They said Sanchez-Torres joined them in Alabama to help with driving.

They said Romero-Gonzalez told them not to get out of the van. Romero-Gonzalez told investigators he was paid $500 by an acquaintance in Phoenix to drive the people to Florida. He said he received an additional $300 for fuel and food.

There was no further information provided regarding Sanchez-Torres.

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