November 19, 2007
Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2007/November/07_crm_931.html
Michigan Woman Sentenced for Her Role in Smuggling Scores of Iraqis and Jordanians into the United States
WASHINGTON – Neeran H. Zaia, 56, of Sterling Heights, Mich., was sentenced to 15 years in prison for her role in a conspiracy to smuggle Iraqis and Jordanians into the United States and for bringing and attempting to bring Iraqis and Jordanians to the United States for the purpose of private financial gain, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor of the District of Columbia announced.
Zaia was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Judge Collyer also sentenced Zaia to 10 years of supervised release.
Zaia pleaded guilty on Sept. 6, 2007, and admitted that she accepted payment from Iraqi and Jordanian migrants to transport them to South America, where she facilitated arrangements with other smugglers associated with the conspiracy. Those persons, in turn, brought or attempted to bring the migrants to the United States. On Aug. 3, 2007, Zaia’s husband, Thaer Omran Ismail Asaifi, was sentenced by Judge Collyer to 72 months in prison for his role in the conspiracy and for alien smuggling.
Zaia was previously convicted on three counts of bribery, seven counts of visa fraud and one count of alien smuggling in the Eastern District of Michigan in 1992.
The charges arise from an extraterritorial undercover investigation initiated and led by the Washington Field Office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with the substantial assistance of personnel and resources from ICE’s Detroit Office; the Peruvian National Police, and Peruvian Immigration authorities. The State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service also assisted with the investigation.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce R. Hegyi of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, and by Trial Attorneys Jim Oliver of the Civil Rights Division and Pragna Soni, for the Domestic Security Section of the Criminal Division.
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07-931
November 20, 2007
Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2007/November/07_crm_934.html
MS-13 Member Sentenced to More Than 19 Years in Prison for Involvement in a Racketeering Conspiracy
WASHINGTON – A member of La Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, has been sentenced to 235 months in prison for his participation in a racketeering enterprise, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Edward M. Yarbrough of the Middle District of Tennessee announced today.
Geovanni Pena, a.k.a. Rata, was sentenced today by Chief U.S. District Judge Todd J. Campbell of the Middle District of Tennessee in Nashville. Judge Campbell also ordered Pena to serve three years of supervised release.
At his plea hearing on Sept. 6, 2007, Pena admitted that he and others involved in the MS-13 gang conspired to participate in a pattern of racketeering activity in the Nashville metropolitan area, which included murder and attempted murder. In addition, Pena admitted that on September 3, 2006, as part of his membership in MS-13, he fired a handgun into a crowd of people outside Club Coco Loco in metropolitan Nashville and shot and wounded two men. Pena had believed that people in the crowd were members of the rival street gang Brown Pride. Pena also admitted that on Sept. 4, 2006, at Percy Priest Lake in Nashville, he shot a man several times in the back because he believed the man to be a member of the rival street gang 18th Street.
Pena is the first defendant to be sentenced on the RICO indictment returned by a federal grand jury on Jan. 10, 2007. That indictment charges 14 members of MS-13 with conspiring to participate in the affairs of a racketeering enterprise and related charges including murder, attempted murder, assault, weapons charges, and obstruction of justice. Of the 14 defendants originally charged in the indictment, seven have pleaded guilty to racketeering offenses. Trial for the remaining seven defendants is currently scheduled for April 8, 2008.
The MS-13 street gang is a violent international criminal organization composed primarily of immigrants or descendants of immigrants from El Salvador. The purpose of the racketeering enterprise was to preserve and protect the power, territory, and profits of the MS-13 enterprise through violent assault, murder, threats of violence, and intimidation.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jimmie Lynn Ramsaur of the Middle District of Tennessee and Department of Justice Trial Attorneys David Jaffe and John Han from the Criminal Division’s Gang Squad.
This case was investigated by the Nashville Metropolitan Police Department’s Gang Suppression Unit, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Department of Homeland Security, the Davidson County District Attorney General’s Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Middle District of Tennessee, and the Gang Squad at the Department of Justice.
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07-934