Eight are sentenced in Key West for smuggling immigrants
Sun-Sentinel.com
Fort Lauderdale
December 20, 2007
A federal judge in Key West has sentenced eight smugglers of illegal Cuban immigrants to prison terms, according to a release Wednesday from the U.S. Coast Guard.
All eight were sentenced on Tuesday to terms ranging from six months to 96 months' imprisonment. Five separate cases were impacted.
In the most serious of them, Geormani Hernandez Gari and Diuvel Rodriguez were both sentenced to 96 months in prison for bringing aliens to the United States and failing to present them to immigration officials at a designated point of entry. A jury had convicted the pair of the offense in October.
The Coast Guard stopped 2,868 undocumented Cuban immigrants who tried to enter the United States from the sea during fiscal 2007, the release said. So far this fiscal year, 508 have been stopped at sea.
