Human smugglers get 10 years, 6½ years for roles in 'unimaginable' deaths of family at Manitoba-U.S. border
Harshkumar Patel and Steve Shand were convicted by Minnesota jury after family of 4 from India died in 2022
Two convicted human smugglers have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for their roles in carrying out a scheme to bring Indian migrants into the U.S. from Canada, which led to the deaths of a family of four as they tried to walk across the international border from Manitoba in blizzard conditions in 2022.
Harshkumar Patel, an Indian national arrested in Chicago last year, was sentenced to just over 10 years in prison during a hearing Wednesday for co-ordinating the smuggling operation and hiring his co-accused, Florida resident Steve Shand.
Shand, who was arrested near the border the night the family died, was handed a sentence of six and a half years in prison to be followed by a period of supervised release.
"The crime in many respects is extraordinary because it did result in the unimaginable death of four individuals, including two children," said U.S. District Judge John Tunheim, who handed down the sentences at the federal courthouse in the northwestern Minnesota city of Fergus Falls.
The two men were tried and convicted there last November, after a jury deliberated for less than 90 minutes before returning with guilty verdicts on all four charges each of the men faced related to bringing unauthorized people into the U.S., transporting them and profiting from it.
"These were deaths that were clearly avoidable," Tunheim said Wednesday.
The sentencings come more than three years after four members of the Patel family (who were not related to Harshkumar Patel) died while trying to walk across the border.
The frozen bodies of Jagdish Patel, 39, his wife, Vaishali, 37, their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi, and their three-year-old son, Dharmik, were found in a snow-drifted Manitoba field about 12 metres from the U.S. border on Jan. 19, 2022.
WATCH | Human smugglers sentenced after freezing deaths of family at U.S.–Canada border:
The temperature that day was –23 C, but the wind chill made it feel like the –35 to –38 range.
Tunheim said Shand — who had other Indian nationals in the van he was driving at the time of his arrest — played a "relatively minor" role compared to others in the smuggling conspiracy.
"At the same time, you could have done something that night," said Tunheim. "You could have told officials … that there were other people out there."
U.S. federal prosecutors had recommended sentences of nearly 20 years for Patel, and nearly 11 years for Shand.
Neither man reacted as their sentence was handed down, or addressed the court when given the opportunity.
The smuggling operation
Both men's lawyers asked for lower sentences than what prosecutors were seeking. Patel's lawyers argued at trial he was wrongfully accused in the case, while Shand's described their client as an unsuspecting cab driver duped by Patel into shuttling migrants into the U.S. after they walked across the international border illegally.
Acting U.S. Attorney Lisa Kirkpatrick told the court Wednesday Patel exploited the migrants' hopes for a better life in America, out of his own greed.
WATCH | Sentences in human smuggling case send strong message, says U.S. attorney:
"Mr. Patel's lawyer said it well when he said 'tragic' almost rings hollow when we talk about what happened here," Kirkpatrick told reporters after the sentences were handed down.
"We can't bring the family back," she said. "But with the lengthy sentences imposed today, we can send a strong message, a message that human life does not have a price tag."
Court heard Patel, who appeared Wednesday in an orange uniform and handcuffed, is likely to be deported to his native India after completing his sentence. Shand left the courthouse with his lawyers, and will be taken into custody at a later date.
Last month, Tunheim rejected requests to acquit or order new trials for the men, whose lawyers had argued the evidence against their clients was insufficient.
To date, no one in Canada is facing charges in the case. RCMP previously said the investigation was ongoing, and did not respond to a request for an update by Wednesday evening.
Prosecutors said during the trial that Patel, who they say went by the alias "Dirty Harry," and Shand were part of a sophisticated illegal operation that brought dozens of people from India to Canada on student visas, then smuggled them across the U.S. border.
The family members who died were from Dingucha, a village in the western Indian state of Gujarat, as was Harshkumar Patel.
The couple were schoolteachers, local news reports said. So many villagers have gone overseas in hopes of better lives — legally and otherwise — that many homes there stand vacant.
Jagdish Patel died while trying to shield Dharmik's face from a "blistering wind" with a frozen glove, prosecutor Michael McBride wrote in a court filing. Vihangi was wearing "ill-fitting boots and gloves." Their mother "died slumped against a chain-link fence she must have thought salvation lay behind," McBride wrote.
"I'm a lifelong Minnesotan. I would not go out in this weather," Kirkpatrick told reporters after Wednesday's sentencing. "But the defendants sent into that weather 11 migrants, Indian nationals who were not dressed appropriately, who were ill-prepared for the weather they faced that night."
Seven other members of their group survived the foot crossing, but only two made it to Shand's van, which was stuck in the snow on the Minnesota side when he was arrested. One woman who survived had to be flown to a hospital with severe frostbite and hypothermia. Another survivor testified he had never seen snow before arriving in Canada.
'Never shown an ounce of remorse': prosecutor
"Mr. Patel has never shown an ounce of remorse," McBride wrote.
"Even today, he continues to deny he is the 'Dirty Harry' that worked with Mr. Shand on this smuggling venture — despite substantial evidence to the contrary and counsel for his co-defendant identifying him as such at trial."
The smugglers put money before the lost migrants' safety, McBride argued.
"Even as this family wandered through the blizzard at 1 a.m., searching for Mr. Shand's van, Mr. Shand was focused on one thing, which he texted Mr. Patel: 'we not losing any money,"' McBride wrote.
"Worse, when Customs and Border Patrol arrested Mr. Shand sitting in a mostly unoccupied 15-passenger van, he denied others were out in the snow — leaving them to freeze without aid."
While Shand's lawyers did not speak to reporters after the sentencing, Patel's attorney said his client plans to file an appeal in the case.
"He's disappointed but … he is in a country where he is not a citizen, and he will still be afforded all the rights of an American citizen to appeal this," Thomas Leinenweber said. "For that, he should be grateful."
Shand's attorney, federal defender Aaron Morrison, acknowledged that Shand has "a level of culpability" but argued that his role was limited — that he was just a taxi driver who needed money to support his wife and six children.
"Mr. Shand was on the outside of the conspiracy," Morrison wrote in a court filing. "He did not plan the smuggling operation, he did not have decision making authority, and he did not reap the huge financial benefits as the real conspirators did."
Kirkpatrick said the investigation into the smuggling ring is still ongoing.
With files from The Associated Press