Woman Sentenced To Time Served, Ordered To Report To Immigration Officials (Tyler Morning Telegraph)

Woman Sentenced To Time Served, Ordered To Report To Immigration Officials

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

By CASEY KNAUPP
Staff Writer

A 43-year-old Mexican national living in Longview was sentenced Tuesday to time already served in jail for producing fraudulent Social Security cards and immigration documents.

Margarita Martinez was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis to the 10 months she's already served in jail and ordered to surrender to immigration officials for deportation proceedings.

Defense attorney Bobby Mims said his client understands she will be deported to Mexico and that she is prepared and wants to go. He asked the judge to sentence her to time served and let immigration officials remove her from the country.

"I want to return to my family," Ms. Martinez said through a Spanish-speaking interpreter.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Middleton said the case involved numerous fraudulent documents. Ms. Martinez was charged with producing and transferring fraudulent Social Security cards and immigration documents between Sept. 11 and Oct. 16 in Gregg County.

A 35-year-old Mexican national living in Palestine was sentenced by Davis to 10 months in federal prison for illegally being in the United States.

Anselmo Espinoza-Gonzalez, 35, pleaded guilty to being an illegal alien after he was deported in 1998 after an offense of driving while intoxicated. He re-entered the country and was convicted in 2001 of injury to a child in Anderson County. He was found again in Anderson County in November and arrested.

U.S. Public Defender Ken Hawk said he worked and lived out his probation in Anderson County for eight years, although he's not supposed to be in the United States. He said he did not know how his client was on probation for so long without being deported.

"I'm ready to return to Mexico," Gonzalez told the judge through an interpreter.

"Are you ready to stay there?" the judge asked.

"Yes," the defendant replied.

Davis said if he comes back to the United States again, he'd receive a very high sentence.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Allen Hurst prosecuted the case.