ST. CROIX — Manuel Alberto Fuentes-Acosta, 46, a citizen of Mexico, was sentenced Thursday for reentry of removed immigrant, United States Attorney Gretchen C.F. Shappert announced.
Visiting Judge Anne E. Thompson sentenced Fuentes-Acosta to time served and a $100 special assessment. The defendant had been detained from November 2018.
Fuentes-Acosta pleaded guilty February 4, 2019. According to the plea agreement filed in court on November 9, 2018, while seeking to board the American Airline flight, the defendant presented himself to CBP primary inspection at the Rohlsen Airport on St. Croix. The defendant advised the primary officer that he was illegally in the United States. He was referred to secondary inspection where he repeated to the secondary officer that he was in the United States illegally and did not have a visa.
The defendant was arrested and told Homeland Security agents that he entered the United States in 1996 illegally and was deported in 2017 from Laredo, TX. The defendant stated that he remained in Mexico and subsequently returned to the United States without inspection. He further stated he paid a smuggler $2,000 to $3,000 to transport him into the United States by crossing the river from Mexico to Del Rio, TX in April 2018.
The investigation revealed the defendant was deported on June 1, 2017 from Laredo, TX to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico and that he did not obtain consent from the Attorney General to re-enter the United States.
The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Rhonda Williams-Henry.
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