3 plead guilty after illegal immigrants held for ransom

By Cara McCoy (contact)

Thursday, July 9, 2009 | 5:22 p.m.

Three men have pleaded guilty to holding seven illegal immigrants in a Las Vegas motel room against their will.

The seven people were being held for ransom, U.S. District Attorney for Nevada Greg Brower said in a statement.

Court records show that in April, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents received information that people who had crossed the border illegally from Mexico were being held in Las Vegas. The captors had contacted the victims' family members and said they needed to pay $2,800 for each victim's release, the district attorney said.

After an investigation, law enforcement agents and ICE officials determined through telephone records the victims were being held in a room at the Aruba Motel, 1215 Las Vegas Blvd. South.

On April 23, officers entered the motel room where the group was staying. They found 12 people, five of whom were the captors, Brower said. All 12 were taken into custody, and agents determined that 11 of them were illegal immigrants, seven of whom were smuggled into the United States for a fee, the district attorney said.

Felipe de Jesus Flores-Villela, 33, entered a guilty plea Wednesday and Victor Manual Morales-Velazquez, 22, and Angel Rigoberto Uribe-Ibarra, 48, entered guilty pleas Thursday. The men each pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens for private financial gain. A fourth man charged in the case, Orlando Jimenez, 21, is scheduled to enter a guilty plea to the same charge on Tuesday and a fifth man, Gerardo Perez-Villegas, 21, is awaiting trial.

All of the defendants, except Jimenez, who is a U.S. citizen, are Mexican nationals who entered the United States unlawfully, the district attorney said.

The men required the victims to contact family members, or to provide contact information for family members so they could contact them for ransom, investigators said. The men subjected the victims to physical assault and intimidation, displayed firearms and other weapons to intimidate the victims and made threats of death and physical violence to coerce them to persuade family members to pay the ransoms, the district attorney said.

Investigators found three pellet firing replica pistols and an automatic-opening bladed knife in the motel room, authorities said. Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 6.