A woman who was convicted of conspiracy to bring in illegal aliens by using a panga boat that crashed near the Children\u2019s Pool in La Jolla in 2013 has been sentenced to one year in federal prison.
\nSofia Martinez, 27, was convicted by a federal jury on Nov. 18, 2014, but her sentencing was delayed by numerous legal issues, which ultimately led to U.S. District Court Judge William Hayes dismissing several other counts for which she had been convicted.
\nHer attorney, Martha Hall, brought a motion that noted a co-defendant who testified against Martinez got a lesser sentence than five years which he testified he expected to receive based on his testimony. Hall alleged that prosecutors didn\u2019t disclose his sentencing agreement before Martinez\u2019s trial. Her motion sought a new trial, but she reached a sentencing agreement of one year with the U.S. Attorney\u2019s office in which they agreed to seek dismissal of three convictions of bringing in illegal aliens for financial gain. Hayes granted the motion to dismiss the three charges. The conspiracy conviction remains.
\nMartinez, of San Ysidro, had been free on $60,000 bond until the jury\u2019s verdict and she received credit for being in jail for the last eight months.
\nProsecutors presented evidence that Martinez directed a delivery of immigrants by panga boat on May 9, 2013 from Mexico and it crashed south of the Children\u2019s Pool in the early morning hours of May 10. Border Patrol agents found 15 undocumented people nearby.
\nA co-defendant, Angel Arceo-Sevilla, 40, was sentenced to two years in federal prison, but his projected release date is July 20, according to federal inmate records. Loreto Mesa-Villegas, 41, was sentenced to two years in prison, and his projected release is April 25, 2016.
\nBoth Arceo-Sevilla and Mesa-Villegas pleaded guilty to conspiracy and three counts of bringing in illegal aliens for financial gain.
\nThe immigrants in the boat were coated in gasoline after the panga boat crashed. One man received chemical burns on his feet.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A woman who was convicted of conspiracy to bring in illegal aliens by using a panga boat that crashed near the Children\u2019s Pool in La Jolla in 2013 has been sentenced to one year in federal prison. Sofia Martinez, 27, was convicted by a federal jury on Nov. 18, 2014, but her sentencing was delayed […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Woman behind panga boat crash receives one year","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11551,11593],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-news","category-no-images"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}