SAN ANTONIO — A Mexican man pleaded guilty Thursday to four charges related to the human smuggling tragedy in which 53 migrants died after being found in an overheated, cramped tractor-trailer in southwest San Antonio.
Riley Covarrubias-Ponce, 31, became the third person to plead guilty in connection with the June 2022 incident; authorities said he, Christian Martinez and Juan Francisco D'Luna Bilbao were responsible for providing the tractor-trailer to Homero Zamorano Jr., the suspected driver. According to a Department of Justice release, Covarrubias-Ponce also "traveled from Houston to accompany the loaded tractor-trailer as it transported the migrants north on Interstate 35."
A federal district court judge will determine Covarrubias-Ponce's sentence. He faces up to life in prison. Martinez was originally scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 4, but that date has since been pushed back to March.
Forty-seven adults and six children were found dead or dying when police made the discovery on June 27, 2022, along Quintana Road—it's considered the deadliest human smuggling event in U.S. history, and reignited conversation about immigration. According to authorities, at least 66 people who were in the country by illegal means were being transported before Zamorano abandoned the semitruck.
The migrants came from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and elsewhere; they were as young as 13 years old and as old as 55.
Seven people have since been arrested and are at various stages in the justice system. Felipe Orduna-Torres and Luis Alberto Rivera-Leal are also accused of planning the retrieval and handoff of the tractor-trailer alongside Covarrubias-Ponce.
Local leaders are working to make the temporary memorial into a permanent place of remembrance, as well as collaborating with the Smithsonian to potentially create a digital archive telling the story of each migrant who died.
>TRENDING ON KENS 5 YOUTUBE:
