Ringleader gets 10 years after Indian family froze to death on US-Canada border
Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel is likely to be deported to India after serving his sentence for his role in the human smuggling plot
More than three years after a family of four from India froze to death while trying to enter the US along a remote stretch of the Canadian border in a blizzard, the convicted ringleader of an international human smuggling plot was sentenced in Minnesota on Wednesday to 10 years in prison.
Federal prosecutors had recommended nearly 20 years for Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, and nearly 11 years for the driver who was supposed to pick them up, Steve Anthony Shand, who got 6½ years on Wednesday with two years’ supervised release.
“The crime in many respects is extraordinary because it did result in the unimaginable death of four individuals, including two children,” US District Judge John Tunheim said. “These were deaths that were clearly avoidable.”
Patel’s defence lawyer, Thomas Leinenweber, told the court before sentencing that Patel maintains his innocence and argued he was no more than a “low man on the totem pole”. He asked for time served, 18 months.
But acting US Attorney Lisa Kirkpatrick said Patel exploited the migrants’ hopes for a better life in America, out of his own greed.
“We should make no mistake, it was the defendant’s greed that set in motion the facts that bring us here today,” she said.