3 days ago
Venezuelan man convicted of using El Paso apartment as stash house for migrants
A Venezuelan man was found guilty by a federal jury of operating a migrant stash house in a Northeast El Paso apartment.
A federal jury convicted Marcel Eliezer Zapata-Colmenarez, 26, on Tuesday, June 3, on one count of conspiracy to harbor aliens, federal court records show.
Zapata-Colmenarez is set to be sentenced Aug. 26. He is facing up to 10 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone presided over the trial at the Albert Armendariz Sr. Federal Courthouse in Downtown El Paso.
U.S. Border Patrol agents conducting an immigration investigation went to Zapata-Colmenarez's house in the 4000 block of Sheppard Avenue about 10 a.m. Jan. 30, a federal complaint affidavit states.
Agents received information that migrants were being held in an apartment behind Zapata-Colmenarez's house. No information is included in court documents on where agents received the information.
The agents questioned Zapata-Colmenarez, who said he was a Venezuelan citizen awaiting his immigration hearing, scheduled for April.
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Zapata-Colmenarez went to his bedroom to get his immigration paperwork and permitted agents to enter his house, the affidavit states. He also allowed the agents to search the house.
Agents found "piles of clothes on the floor, wet and muddy clothing hanging in a closet, and other signs consistent with harboring and smuggling illegal aliens," U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas officials said in a news release.
Zapata-Colmenarez allowed agents to search his cell phone. The agents found "proof-of-life videos," the affidavit states. Proof-of-life videos are sent by migrants who illegally crossed the border to acknowledge that they had been smuggled with the assistance of a smuggling network, the news release states.
Agents interviewed Zapata-Colmenarez about their suspicion that he was running a stash house. He told agents a man, who is not named in court documents, driving a black sports utility vehicle, offered him a job to house migrants who had illegally crossed into the U.S., the affidavit states.
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The man would call Zapata-Colmenarez and tell him to take the migrants. Zapata-Colmenarez confessed to agents that he housed migrants in his apartment twice, the affidavit states. He added he knew the migrants were illegally in the country.
Zapata-Colmenarez said he was paid $50 per migrant he housed at his apartment, the affidavit states.
Aaron Martinez covers the criminal justice system for the El Paso Times. He may be reached at amartinez1@ or on X/Twitter @AMartinezEPT.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Venezuelan man convicted of running Northeast El Paso stash house
