Thanks for the PING
Time to change the CA government....
A Union City bodega owner was sentenced to four years and two months in federal prison today for illegally shuttling more than $1 million to Mexico and harboring illegal immigrants.
Federal prosecutors said much of the money was earned by Mexican women who had been put to work as prostitutes after being smuggled into the United States.
Jose Luis Notario was also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine by U.S. District Judge Joseph E. Irenas in Newark.
Notario, 52, is the 13th person to be sentenced in the government's investigation into a large-scale smuggling and trafficking ring operating out of Union City. The other sentences ranged from 15 months to nearly five years.
Federal agents found that families around San Miguel Tenancingo, Mexico, smuggled Mexicans ages 17 to mid-20s into the United States to work as prostitutes, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark said. The teens and women gave their earnings to the traffickers, who sent the money back to the traffickers' families in Mexico. The judge said that Notario's building in Union City was the "epicenter" of the prostitution operation.
Surveillances and trash checks revealed that the location was used as a "safe house" for Mexican women working as prostitutes.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2007/10/bodega_owner_gets_prison_for_s.html