A Mississippi man who was convicted of using a cloned delivery truck from a home improvement store to smuggle migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border in 2024 will spend 10 years in prison after he was sentenced last week.
Cezanne Megel Patterson, 29, was sentenced to a Texas prison nearly 11 months after being apprehended by the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Patterson was pulled down by a Texas DPS trooper on August 30, 2024, while driving what seemed to be a Lowe’s home improvement delivery truck on a roadway west of Del Rio. During the examination of the car, the trooper discovered 17 migrants within a three-foot-wide fake compartment with no ventilation, according to officials.
According to NewsNation, troopers reported seeing several men and women drenched in perspiration, dehydrated, and with numbness in their legs after being jammed into the cramped room.
The Texas DPS published a video of Patterson’s arrest last year, showing him informing the trooper who pulled him over that he was a self-contractor. The trooper stated that the truck’s license plate registration had lapsed.
Patterson was arrested and charged with smuggling people with the intention of causing serious bodily harm. Patterson earned the 10-year sentence after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation into law in 2023 requiring a 10-year minimum penalty for people convicted of human smuggling.
“Patterson’s case is the perfect example of the dangerous lengths smugglers will go to when risking human lives for profit,” DPS South Texas Region Chief Arturo Dela Garza said in a statement released by the agency Wednesday. “Human smuggling is a serious crime, and I am proud of the collaborative work between our State Troopers and local prosecutors to hold smugglers, like Patterson, accountable.”
