CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - A 35-year-old from Mexico has been ordered to federal prison for illegal re-entry after deportation, announced U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani.
A federal jury found Laureano Mar-Peres guilty Nov. 29, 2022.
Today, U.S. District Judge David S. Morales ordered him to serve 33 months in federal prison. Not a U.S. citizen, Mar-Peres is expected to face removal proceedings following his imprisonment. In handing down the sentence, Judge Morales noted that how Mar-Peres had been removed from the United States five times.
At trial, testimony revealed that on Jan. 11, 2022, authorities had encountered Mar-Peres attempting to circumvent the Border Patrol (BP) checkpoint in Kenedy County. A fingerprint expert was able to identify Mar-Peres as the same individual previously ordered removed from the United States, the most recent being Oct. 22, 2021.
The defense attempted to convince the jury that because so many people are removed from the United States, there was no way to keep track of all of them. They did not believe those claims and found him guilty as charged.
Mar-Peres has been and will remain in custody pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.
Customs and Border Protection conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Overman and Tyler Foster prosecuted the case.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys