Mexican document dealer sentenced to prison

A Mexican national was sentenced this week to more than two years in federal prison for supplying stolen citizenship documents and information to workers at a Hyrum, Cache County, meat-packing plant, which was later raided by federal agents as part of a nationwide operation against illegal-immigrant workers.

Led into court in a blue jumpsuit with her hands and feet bound in chains, Veronica Carrillo sat calmly as she listened through a Spanish interpreter to her sentence for selling naturalization or citizenship papers.

U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell said that, under the charge, he was required to sentence Carrillo to a mandatory two years in federal prison on top of any other prison time. Carrillo faced a total of 36 months, but Cassell determined 29 months was more appropriate.

Through an interpreter, Carrillo asked the court to consider her children and her poor health. "I will leave the country and never come back again," she said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Kennedy said Carrillo was a "major supplier" of fraudulent citizenship documents, which she and Eleuterio Gutierrez sold to the workers at the Swift & Co. plant. The plant was raided by federal agents last December, and 158 people were arrested. The raid was part of a larger operation involving Swift plants across the country, in which 1,297 people were taken into custody.

Kennedy said people whose identities were stolen have found out that their personal information was used several times by people across the United States, creating chaos.

Carrillo, who is in the country illegally, also has been ordered to never enter the United States illegally when she completes her sentence.

Gutierrez, who also has pleaded guilty in a plea deal with prosecutors, is scheduled to be sentenced on Wednesday.

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