HOUSTON — The roots of an immigrant smuggling operation that left 19 dead last year stretched through Texas, across the Mexican border and deep into Central America. Amid those associated with the incident -- convicted smugglers, suspects, victims and survivors -- one man has stood out.
Tyrone Williams was a working-class truck driver from Schenectady, N.Y., who typically spent his days hauling milk south and watermelons north. In May 2003, however, he allegedly was promised $5,000 to carry a truckload of undocumented immigrants to Houston. Fourteen suspects were indicted in connection with the operation, but Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft announced that the government would seek the death penalty against just one -- Williams.
Now, a judge wants prosecutors to explain that decision.
Williams, 33, has pleaded not guilty to charges of transporting and harboring illegal immigrants and conspiracy to transport immigrants. He is scheduled to go to trial Jan. 5, charged in connection with the incident in which more than 70 people were brought to "safe houses" in West Texas and then crammed into the back of a locked and unventilated tractor-trailer.
U.S. District Judge Vanessa D. Gilmore recently asked Assistant U.S. Atty. Tony R. Roberts for a letter, to be written by Ashcroft, explaining why they "sought the death penalty on this guy, the only black guy, and not on the others." Gilmore's request came after Williams' attorneys argued that he had been targeted because of his race. Gilmore threatened to hold prosecutors in contempt if she did not receive the letter.
Roberts and Michael T. Shelby, the U.S. attorney for the southern district of Texas, are bound by a gag order not to discuss the case. Justice Department officials did not return phone calls.
In documents filed with the court, prosecutors said that they would not be able to produce the letter. The judge's demand, they wrote, raises "serious separation of powers concerns." The U.S. attorney's office, they said, has "discretion on how to proceed in matters of prosecuting the laws in federal courts." Ashcroft, they wrote, is busy, and his ability to do his job would be "severely hampered by requiring him to personally respond."
Prosecutors also argued that Williams' case was unique because he "was the only person in control of the tractor-trailer when the aliens' situation deteriorated."
"None of the other co-defendants had the power to release the aliens and possibly save their lives," they wrote.
