MINNEAPOLIS – In a ruling on Tuesday, a federal judge rejected requests for new trials for two men convicted of human smuggling charges in the deaths of four family members from India who perished while attempting to cross the Canadian border into Minnesota during a blizzard in 2022.
U.S. District Judge John Tunheim declined to overturn the guilty verdicts that a jury had reached last November against Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel and Steve Anthony Shand. This decision paves the way for the defendants to pursue their cases in a federal appeals court following their sentencing scheduled for May 7.
Attorneys for both men argued that the evidence was insufficient.
“But this was not a close case,” Tunheim countered.
The judge determined that the evidence presented was adequate for the jury to convict Shand and Patel on all four charges. He acknowledged that the belated disclosure by prosecutors, during the trial, of a prior disciplinary action taken against a Border Patrol agent who testified, while problematic, had limited impact on the overall case. Judge Tunheim also reaffirmed his choice to hold a joint trial for the defendants rather than separate proceedings.
Prosecutors said during the trial that Patel, an Indian national who prosecutors say went by the alias “Dirty Harry,” and Shand, an American from Florida, were part of a sophisticated illegal operation that brought increasing numbers of Indians into the U.S.
They said the victims, 39-year-old Jagdish Patel; his wife, Vaishaliben, who was in her mid-30s; their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and 3-year-old son, Dharmik, froze to death just north of the border between Manitoba and Minnesota on Jan. 19, 2022. The family was from Dingucha, a village in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The couple were schoolteachers, local news reports said. Seven other members of their group survived the foot crossing. Patel is a common Indian surname, and the victims were not related to the defendant.
The most serious counts carry maximum sentences of up to 20 years in prison. But federal sentencing guidelines rely on complicated formulas, and prosecutors have not yet said what they will recommend for sentences.
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