11/22/2005 12:31 PM
By: Adam Shub, News 14 Carolina, and the Associated Press
Jorge Humberto Hernandez-Soto was transported Sunday from the hospital to the Mecklenburg County Jail.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A Mexican native charged in a drunken-driving wreck that killed a student at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte had been arrested previously on impaired driving charges and has been returned to Mexico 17 times, according to authorities.
Jorge Humberto Hernandez-Soto was arrested on charges of impaired driving in Colorado and Tennessee; he has been deported from Tucson, Ariz., twice and once from El Paso, Texas, and was voluntarily sent back to Mexico another 14 times after being caught near the border, immigration officials said.
"We have no idea how he's getting back in" the country, said Jeff Jordan, assistant special agent in charge of North Carolina for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Authorities said Hernandez-Soto, 35, has used other names than his real one.
Hernandez-Soto faces a second-degree murder charge in the death of Min Chang, 18, early Friday. Authorities have said he was driving a sport-utility vehicle at more than 100 mph the wrong way on Interstate 485 when he collided head-on with Chang's Nissan 350Z around 12:40 a.m.
The North Carolina Highway Patrol said officers were trying to signal Hernandez-Soto to pull over from across a median when the wreck occurred.
In a hospital interview Saturday, Hernandez-Soto told The Charlotte Observer he drank six beers before Friday's wreck. He said he lived in Lake City, S.C., and planned to be in Charlotte just for the day, to pick up a Ford Expedition for a friend.
Hernandez-Soto was flung from the vehicle during the wreck, hitting his head and breaking an ankle. He is being held at the Mecklenburg County Jail.
An undocumented immigrant was responsible for a July 16 wreck in coastal Brunswick County that killed a teacher from Gaston County, just west of Charlotte.
Ramiro Gallegos, an illegal immigrant from Mexico with three previous driving while intoxicated convictions, was at the wheel of a truck that struck a car driven by Scott Gardner and carrying Gardner's family. Gardner's wife was seriously injured in the accident; the couple's two children received only minor injuries.
Responding to that incident, U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., proposed legislation that would require the deportation of any undocumented immigrants convicted of drunken driving.
Immigration spokesman Tim Counts told the Observer that when Hernandez-Soto is released from custody, he will be deported.
Related Stories
11/21/05 Loved ones mourn crash victim
11/20/05 Alleged drunk driver says he's sorry
11/18/05 Immigrant charged in fatal wreck
11/19/05 Driver describes near miss on I-485