Roma man sentenced in connection with deadly human smuggling crash
A 28-year-old man was sentenced in connection with a 2019 crash that killed four undocumented migrants in Duval County, according to a Wednesday news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Jose Refugio Torres was sentenced to three years in prison on a charge of conspiring to smuggle undocumented migrants resulting in multiple deaths.
Torres was identified as a member of a human smuggling ring that had conspired to transport the migrants from the Valley to other parts of the U.S.
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Members of the human smuggling ring were transporting the migrants to Houston in March 2019 when a crash caused the vehicle to rollover, killing four of the migrants and injuring six others.
The victims included citizens of Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Ecuador as well as a 17-year-old boy from Ecuador, the news release stated.
Torres’ sentence will be followed by one year of supervised release. He will remain on bond before voluntarily surrendering to a prison facility in the near future.