Fort Hood Soldier Accused Of Smuggling Migrants Into Texas From Mexico
LAREDO, Texas (CBSDFW.COM/AP) - A Fort Hood soldier and a Pennsylvania National Guardsman stationed at the Central Texas installation have been charged with smuggling two men into Texas from Mexico.
Court records show Fort Hood soldier Ralph Gregory Saint-Joie, 18, and guardsman Emmanuel Oppongagyare, 20, made initial appearances before a federal magistrate Tuesday in Laredo.
Both were held in custody under $75,000 bonds pending detention hearings next Tuesday, June 22.
A car Oppongagyaye was driving with Saint-Joie as a passenger, both in Army uniforms, approached a Border Patrol checkpoint in Hebbronville, about 150 miles south of San Antonio.
A criminal complaint says that as agents performed an initial inspection, Oppongagyaye told them he and Saint-Joie were driving to San Antonio from the border town of Zapata, Texas.
When the car was referred for a secondary inspection, two Mexican nationals were found in its trunk, according to the complaint.
Oppongagye told the agent that a man he met through Saint-Joie paid him $100 and promised an undetermined amount of money to pick up a man and a woman in McAllen and drive them to San Antonio.
Messages to the defendants' court-appointed attorneys were not immediately returned.
The migrants were being held as material witnesses.
(© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)