EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A driver who crashed into a parked vehicle at a business while trying to avoid Texas Department of Public Safety troopers has decided to fight migrant-smuggling charges.
Kevin Joshua Contreras last week entered a plea of “not guilty” after a federal grand jury in El Paso charged him and an alleged accomplice with conspiracy and transportation of illegal aliens, records filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas show.
The charges stem from an alleged May 8 migrant smuggling attempt that began south of La Union, New Mexico, and came to an abrupt halt in the parking lot of a business at 8000 Steel Road in Vinton, Texas.
Members of the U.S. Border Patrol Anti-Smuggling Unit had spotted two vehicles driving in tandem into a neighborhood abutting the southern New Mexico desert a few miles from the border wall. The blue GMC Acadia and a Ford Focus with Texas license plates came out of the neighborhood shortly after and headed for the Texas state line.
Border Patrol requested the assistance of Texas DPS when the vehicles crossed into Texas, court records show, and the state troopers zeroed in on the SUV appearing to carry multiple occupants.
Contreras allegedly stopped the vehicle near a Vinton steel plant so seven occupants could get out, then drove into the parking lot of a business and “attempted to flee” but crashed into a parked vehicle, according to a criminal complaint affidavit.
Contreras was arrested at the crash site without further incident and the Border Patrol tracked down and apprehended seven migrants who had exited the Acadia. Court records show border agents located the second vehicle at a gas station on Doniphan Drive in El Paso and arrested driver Brian Michael Dellinger.
Dellinger allegedly told Anti-Smuggling Unit agents he was paid $400 by Contreras to act as a decoy if approached by authorities. Records show Contreras told investigators he knew the individuals he picked up were migrants and that he was hired by unnamed parties to transport them to El Paso for about $2,800.
However, both defendants have since pleaded not guilty to the charges. Contreras and Dellinger are scheduled to appear before U.S. District Judge Leon Schydlower in federal court in El Paso on July 2.
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