Prosecutors want 19-year and 10-year sentences for men convicted after family froze at Manitoba border

U.S. attorneys have filed sentencing submissions for two men convicted after a family froze to death while trying to walk across the Canada-U.S. border in Manitoba.

A Minnesota jury found Steve Shand of Florida and Harshkumar Patel, an Indian national arrested in Chicago, guilty last year of human-smuggling charges, after a couple from India and their two children were found in the snow metres from the U.S. border in January 2022.

In court documents filed Wednesday, the U.S. attorneys requested Patel be sentenced to a little more than 19 years in prison.

"Mr. Patel has never shown an ounce of remorse," Lisa Kirkpatrick and Michael McBride say in the documents.

"Even today, he continues to deny he is the [person] 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."

They also recommend Shand be handed 10 years for conspiring with Patel to smuggle migrants into the United States through brutal winter conditions.

"Five times Mr. Shand sat in the frigid winter conditions, experiencing first-hand how dangerous — and deadly — the cold could be. Yet he kept going back," the document says. "He kept going back because he wanted more money.

"He did not recognize the humanity of the migrants he was endangering; he saw only a payday."

Shand's lawyer, Aaron Morrison, says in a separate court filing that the government's proposed sentence is "unduly punitive" and he's requesting a little more than two years in prison.

Morrison said his client had little say in the overall smuggling operation, calling him a "good man" who needed money to support his family.

"He is not a heartless lifelong criminal. He is a man who made a bad decision based on a deep-rooted belief that to fail in supporting his family is to fail as a man," he said.

Patel's lawyer, Thomas Leinenweber, did not provide a document outlining a recommendation for his client.

Court heard Shand and Patel were part of an international smuggling ring that brought people from India to Canada on student visas then sent them on foot across the border to the U.S.

They were convicted last November in the January 2022 deaths of the Patel family (who were not related to Harshkumar Patel).

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 just 12 metres from the U.S. border later on the morning of Jan. 19, 2022. 

The temperature that day was –23 C, but the wind chill made it feel like the –35 to –38 range.

Shand was arrested near the border around the same time with other Indian nationals in the van he was driving. Harshkumar Patel was arrested in Chicago in February 2024 on charges of co-ordinating the smuggling and hiring Shand.

Last month, a U.S. district judge rejected requests for new trials for the men, ruling there was sufficient evidence for the jury to find them guilty on all four counts they were convicted of related to bringing unauthorized people into the U.S., transporting them and profiting from it.

The men are set to be sentenced May 28.