EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A truck driver has been federally charged in connection with the death of a migrant when two semis collided on Interstate 10 near Tucson, Arizona.
The Sept. 9 charge of transportation of illegal aliens resulting in death stems from a July 24 incident in which a tractor-trailer driven by Moises Gabriel Castillo, a U.S. citizen, allegedly plowed into the back of another truck.
Court records show Arizona state troopers responding to the scene found an unresponsive male lying face down on the ground near the passenger side of Castillo’s truck. First responders pronounced the man dead on the scene. Authorities later identified him by the initials of A.E.H., a Mexican national with no legal authorization to be in the United States.
Castillo and three undocumented migrants also found at the scene were transported to Tucson-area hospitals due to injuries. The truck Castillo allegedly struck suffered damage only in the rear and there’s no record of the driver or any passengers needing medical care.
After authorities sorted out the identities of the injured, special agents with Homeland Security Investigations interviewed Castillo about the migrants. Court records show Castillo told them nobody was traveling with him and that he didn’t know the injured people.
That prompted authorities to reconstruct events with the use of material witnesses – the migrants they suspected were riding with Castillo – and wait for an autopsy report that showed A.E.H. died of blunt trauma to the head.
According to a criminal complaint filed last Friday in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, Francisco Nuñez Cortez and Lucio Perez Gomez told authorities they were part of a group of four migrants picked up by a driver and ushered to the sleeping compartment of the truck cab. They both identified Castillo as the driver, records show.
Perez further stated that the driver told him to run after the crash despite his injuries. He told authorities he helped Nuñez leave the scene and hide behind a tree until an ambulance arrived.
The migrant said the group crossed into the U.S. illegally through the desert near Juarez, Mexico.
Records show Nuñez later told authorities the deceased (A.E.H.) was his brother-in-law. He allegedly identified Castillo as the truck driver through a photographic lineup.
So did the third surviving migrant, a minor only identified C.P.G. The minor also alleged the driver pushed him after he awoke from the crash and urged him to “get out of the area.”
The criminal complaint also accused Castillo of transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain and causing seriously bodily injury and placing in jeopardy the life of a person.