A criminal complaint filed Thursday in Victoria, Texas, alleges a then-Starr County District Attorney employee and two others smuggled people “almost always” using the office vehicle nearly 50 times since the summer.
Starr County District Attorney Gocha Allen Ramirez announced on Wednesday in a news release that he fired his crime victims coordinator, Bernice Annette Garza, after she was arrested in an alleged scheme to smuggle people into the country in a county vehicle.
Two others, a married couple, Juan Antonio Charles, 40, and Magaly Rosa, 40, were arrested on Wednesday in Victoria.
According to the criminal complaint filed by a Homeland Security Investigations special agent, the couple was traveling in a Starr County District Attorney vehicle, a 2015 Chevrolet van, with four other people a few miles outside of Victoria, Texas, when Victoria County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Andrew Carrizales stopped them for a tinted window violation.
The sheriff’s Highway Interdiction Unit had by then received information about that vehicle.
“VCSO Interdictors had previously received information that this vehicle was making numerous unauthorized trips to the Houston area and was suspected of being involved in some type of criminal activity on these trips,” the complaint read.
Carrizales noted that the backseat passenger, Charles, was answering questions meant for the driver, his wife, Rosa, and overtalking, according to the complaint.
Rosa gave Carrizales contradicting information about her employment, the use of the van and misidentified the district attorney, claiming Garza was the district attorney in Starr County, officials said.
After a quick Internet search, Carrizales learned that Garza was not the district attorney and confronted Rosa with the information. Rosa acknowledged that the information she gave was untruthful and told the deputy that Charles was her husband and was carrying a gun.
Aside from the presence of Rosa’s husband in a government vehicle and his gun, the deputy found the nervous answers and visible trembling of the other four passengers suspicious. Carrizales noted they were wearing new clothes and appeared to answer questions as though “rehearsed.”
One of the passengers, a woman, claimed to be a crime victim and mentioned a court date, meanwhile her carotid artery was “visibly pulsating,” according to the complaint.
After the interaction, the deputy suspected the four other passengers were undocumented immigrants and called in HSI agents. All passengers were taken into custody of the Victoria County Sheriff’s Office for questioning.
Rosa spoke with an HSI agent and later a Starr County District Attorney Office investigator, Trinidad Lopez. Rosa claimed Garza recruited her help to drive immigrants illegally present in the country from Rio Grande City to Houston.
Garza was employed with the Starr County District Attorney’s Office as the crime victim coordinator at the time and was assigned the vehicle used Wednesday, according to the complaint.
Rosa said Garza drove her and the immigrants through the Hebbronville Border Patrol Checkpoint where they met with Charles and an unnamed co-conspirator waiting for them at the Hebbronville courthouse, federal agents said. There, Garza switched vehicles and went back to Rio Grande City with the co-conspirator while Rosa took the county van and drove with Charles and the immigrants toward Houston, according to the complaint.
This was only one of about 46 trips Rosa made with Garza’s assistance since June of 2022 Rosa, according to investigators. Some immigrants would be dropped off by load drivers at a park near the couple’s home which operated as a stash house. There the couple would take them in, buy them clothes and feed them before Garza would pick them and Rosa up in the government vehicle to head to Houston.
Rosa alleged Garza participated in every trip by driving the immigrants past the Hebbronville checkpoint “almost always in the marked DA vehicle.” Rosa and Charles would take the immigrants to Houston from that point, but on a few occasions Garza also drove them to their final destination, too, according to the complaint.
Garza gave Rosa the vehicle and a DA’s badge, usually prominently displayed on the driver’s sun visor as it was during the Wednesday trip, and fraudulent court papers naming the immigrants as crime victims, Rosa alleged to investigators.
Rosa said Garza even informed the couple about the crime victim program and taught them how to coach immigrants if questioned by law enforcement, according to the complaint.
Charles was also interviewed and confirmed details shared by his wife including prior trips, Garza’s involvement and the fraudulent documents. He said they were involved in those human smuggling attempts with Garza for about four months and made two to three trips a week, each time taking up to four people at a time.
Garza was then interviewed by HSI agents and a Texas Department of Public Safety Texas Ranger. Garza admitted she was the original driver of the vehicle and to her involvement in the human smuggling conspiracy with Rosa and Charles, and “that they had made over forty (40) trips to transport undocumented aliens from the Rio Grande City, TX area to the Houston, TX area,” the complaint read.
Garza said during her interview that she knowingly turned over the government vehicle and badge to the couple to aid in the smuggling activity “under the guise of official 229th Judicial District Attorney’s Office business.”
The people in the country illegally paid $3,000 per person once they arrived in Houston.
The immigrant passengers were interviewed by agents. A man from Jalisco, Mexico, said he illegally crossed into the country on Saturday, Dec. 3 and was taken to a stash house where he received food and clothes. During the trip to Houston, he said Charles told him to say they were going to “a house for victims” or a “safe house” if asked.
Another man from Monterrey said he was told to answer “yes” and “yes, sir” at the checkpoint, and was also coached to say they were being taken to serve as witnesses in court if asked, according to the complaint.
An immigrant woman and her 8-year-old child were also in the vehicle driven by Rosa and Charles, but were not detained as witnesses for humanitarian reasons, the complaint read.
Charles, Rosa and Garza were charged with engaging in conspiracy to transport immigrants through the country.
An initial hearing was scheduled for Friday morning.
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