An 18-year-old Mexican national has been found guilty of human smuggling by a Texas jury and immediately sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The jury delivered its guilty verdict against Brian Carrillo Ramirez in the 63rd Judicial District court in Kinney County on Oct. 18.
The charges included multiple counts of smuggling people by motor vehicle with intent to conceal from law enforcement and evading arrest with a motor vehicle.
Both offenses are felonies under Texas law.
District Court Judge Roland Andrade ordered Mr. Ramirez to begin serving his sentence following the guilty verdict.
In a Facebook post, the Kinney County Sheriff’s Office lauded the swift action, noting the jury’s formation on Tuesday, Oct. 17, and a guilty verdict by the afternoon of Oct. 18.
On Sept. 7, Kinney County sheriff’s deputies arrested Mr. Ramirez after a high-speed chase for approximately three miles.
Authorities said Mr. Ramirez stopped and “bailed” from the vehicle, but deputies quickly apprehended him.
According to the District Attorney’s office, in addition to Ramirez—who was driving—the vehicle held two undocumented illegal aliens, Elbia Yulisa Machado, a Honduran national, and Marieli Araceli Gutierrez Ruiz, a Mexican national.
Deputies found both men “lying down in the cargo area” of the Cadillac SUV, but they managed to escape on foot into the brush, according to a press release by the District Attorney’s Office for Val Verde, Kinney, and Terrell counties.
County border prosecuting attorney Amanda Poole told the jury that the state presented “everything they could need to find the defendant guilty, including a video of the evading where they were practically ‘in the lap’ of [a sheriff’s deputy] to see the chase,” the Kinney County sheriff’s office statement said.
The sheriff’s office added that this “was not Ramirez’s first interaction with law enforcement, as he had a previous conviction elsewhere for fleeing in a motor vehicle.”
In February 2022, police in Splendora, Texas, arrested Mr. Ramirez after a motor vehicle chase at more than 120 mph on the I-69 southbound, according to the Montgomery County Police Reporter.
Police determined the Honda Mr. Ramirez was driving had been illegally taken and found a stolen gun inside it.
Authorities charged Mr. Ramirez with evading arrest, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, firearm theft, and controlled narcotic possession.
Mr. Ramirez’s jury conviction in Kinney County reportedly marks one of the first cases to go to a jury trial under the joint military and law enforcement operation in Texas known as Operation Lone Star.
The operation is to counter illegal immigration, drugs, and human smuggling.
