Texas
Smugglers to be sentenced in 53 migrant deaths from 2022 human smuggling tragedy
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Two smugglers convicted of federal charges in connection with the deaths of 53 migrants found in the back of a sweltering tractor-trailer in Texas in 2022 face up to life in prison when they are scheduled to be sentenced Friday.
Felipe Orduna-Torres and Armando Gonzales-Ortega are to be the first of several defendants sentenced in the San Antonio tragedy, which remains the nation’s deadliest human smuggling attempt across the U.S.-Mexico border. A jury convicted the men in March of being part of a human smuggling conspiracy that resulted in death and injury.
Prosecutors described Orduna-Torres as the leader of the smuggling operation inside the U.S. and Gonzales-Ortega as his top assistant.
The immigrants had come from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico and had paid between $12,000 and $15,000 each to be smuggled into the United States, according to an indictment in the case.
They had made it as far as the Texas border city of Laredo when they were placed into a tractor-trailer with broken air conditioning for a three-hour drive to San Antonio.
As the temperature rose inside the trailer, those inside screamed and banged the walls of the trailer for help or tried to claw their way out, investigators said. Most eventually passed out. When the trailer was opened in San Antonio, 48 people were already dead. Another 16 were taken to hospitals, where five more died. The dead included six children and a pregnant woman.
Investigators said the Orduna-Torres and Gonzales-Ortega worked with human smuggling operations in Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, and shared routes, guides, stash houses, trucks and trailers. Orduna-Torres provided the address in Laredo where they would be picked up, and Gonzalez-Ortega met them there.
Five other men previously pleaded guilty to felony charges in the smuggling case, including the truck driver Homero Zamorano Jr., who was found hiding near the trailer in some bushes. Zamorano faces up to life in prison when sentenced in December. The other defendants are scheduled to be sentenced later this year.
It’s the deadliest among tragedies that have claimed thousands of lives in recent decades as people attempt to cross the U.S. border from Mexico. Ten immigrants died in 2017 after they were trapped inside a truck parked at a Walmart store in San Antonio. In 2003, the bodies of 19 immigrants were found in a sweltering truck southeast of San Antonio.
Colorado
Man pleads not guilty to hate crimes in attack on demonstration for Israeli hostages
DENVER (AP) — A man accused of hurling Molotov cocktails at a group of people who were demonstrating in Boulder, Colorado, in support of Israeli hostages pleaded not guilty Friday to federal hate crime charges.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman was indicted earlier this week on 12 hate crime counts in the June 1 attack. He is accused of trying to kill eight people who were hurt by the Molotov cocktails and others who were nearby.
Investigators say Soliman told them he intended to kill the roughly 20 participants at the weekly demonstration on Boulder’s Pearl Street pedestrian mall. But he threw just two of his over two dozen Molotov cocktails while yelling “Free Palestine.”
Soliman, who is also being prosecuted in state court for attempted murder and other charges, told investigators he tried to buy a gun but was not able to because he was not a “legal citizen.”
He posed as a gardener, wearing a construction vest, to get close to the group before launching the attack, according to court documents. He was also indicted for having explosives, which was included in the hate crime counts.
Federal authorities say Soliman, an Egyptian national, has been living in the U.S. illegally with his family.
Soliman is being represented in state and federal court by public defenders who do not comment on their cases to the media.
Prosecutors say the victims were targeted because of their perceived or actual national origin.
At a hearing last week, Soliman’s defense attorney, David Kraut, urged Magistrate Judge Kathryn Starnella not to allow the case to move forward. Kraut said the alleged attack was not a hate crime.
He said it was motivated by Soliman’s opposition to Zionism, the movement to establish and sustain a Jewish state in Israel.
An attack motivated by someone’s political views is not considered a hate crime under federal law.
Colorado
Funeral home owner accused of stashing nearly 190 bodies to be sentenced for fraud
DENVER (AP) — A Colorado funeral home owner accused of stashing nearly 190 dead bodies in a decrepit building and sending grieving families fake ashes is set to be sentenced Friday in federal court for cheating customers and defrauding the government out of nearly $900,000 in COVID-19 aid.
Jon Hallford, owner of Return to Nature Funeral Home, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud last year and faces a maximum of 20 years in prison. Federal prosecutors are seeking a 15-year sentence and Hallford’s attorney asked for 10 years.
He’s pleaded guilty in a separate state case to 191 counts of corpse abuse.
Hallford and co-owner Carie Hallford were accused of storing the bodies between 2019 and 2023 and sending families fake ashes. Investigators described finding the bodies in 2023 stacked atop each other throughout a squat, bug-infested building in Penrose, a small town about a two-hour drive south of Denver.
The morbid discovery revealed to many families that their loved ones weren’t cremated and that the ashes they had spread or cherished were fake. In two cases, the wrong body was buried, according to court documents. Many families said it undid their grieving processes. Some relatives had nightmares, others have struggled with guilt, and at least one wondered about their loved one’s soul.
Among the victims who spoke during Friday’s sentencing was a boy named Colton Sperry. With his head poking just above the lectern, he told the judge about his grandmother, who Sperry said was a second mother to him and died in 2019.
Her body languished inside the Return to Nature building for four years until the discovery, which plunged Sperry into depression. He said he told his parents at the time, “If I die too, I could meet my grandma in heaven and talk to her again.”
His parents brought him to the hospital for a mental health check, which led to therapy and an emotional support dog.
“I miss my grandma so much,” he told the judge through tears.
Federal prosecutors accused both Hallfords of pandemic aid fraud, siphoning the aid and spending it and customer’s payments on a GMC Yukon and Infiniti worth over $120,000 combined, along with $31,000 in cryptocurrency, luxury items from stores like Gucci and Tiffany & Co., and even laser body sculpting.
Derrick Johnson told the judge that he travelled 3,000 miles to testify over how his mother was “thrown into a festering sea of death.”
“I lie awake wondering, was she naked? Was she stacked on top of others like lumber?” said Johnson.
“While the bodies rotted in secret, (the Hallfords) lived, they laughed and they dined” he added. “My moms cremation money likely helped pay for a cocktail, a day at the spa, a first class flight.”
Hallford’s attorney, Laura H. Suelau, asked for a lower sentence of 10 years in the hearing Friday, saying that Hallford “knows he was wrong, he admitted he was wrong” and hasn’t offered an excuse. His sentencing in the state case is scheduled in August.
Carie Hallford is scheduled to go to trial in the federal case in September, the same month as her next hearing in the state case in which she’s also charged with 191 counts of corpse abuse.
Alabama
State sets August nitrogen execution for man convicted of 1992 shooting death
Alabama has scheduled an August execution with nitrogen gas for a man convicted three decades ago of shooting a woman in the head while she slept.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey set a Aug. 21 execution date for David Lee Roberts after the Alabama Supreme Court authorized the execution. If carried out, it would be the nation’s seventh execution by nitrogen gas, a method Alabama began using last year as an alternative to lethal injection.
Roberts, 59, was convicted of killing Annetra Jones in 1992 while a houseguest at Jones’ boyfriend’s home in Marion County. There have been 25 executions so far in 2025 in the United States.
Prosecutors said on the afternoon of April 22, 1992, Roberts came to the home, packed his belongings, stole money and shot Jones three times in the head with a .22 caliber rifle while she slept on the couch. Prosecutors said he poured gasoline or another flammable liquid on the floor and Jones’ body and set fire to the home to hide evidence.
A jury convicted Roberts of capital murder. Jurors voted 7-5 to recommend that he receive life in prison without possibility of parole. A judge overrode the recommendation and sentenced him to death. Alabama no longer allows a judge to override a jury’s sentence in capital cases.
The Alabama Supreme Court authorized Roberts’ execution at the request of the state attorney general’s office, which argued he has exhausted his appeals.
Roberts’ attorney had asked for a delay, arguing that Roberts, who has a paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis, is “probably incompetent to be executed” and should have an evaluation. The U.S. Supreme Court has prohibited the execution of a prisoner who is insane and not aware of his impending execution and of the reasons for it.
Roberts has a well-established history of psychotic illness, and his mental health has deteriorated after decades on Alabama’s death row, his lawyer wrote. A doctor diagnosed him in February with paranoid schizophrenia.
“On February 17, 2025, an ADOC psychologist who saw Mr. Roberts cell-side noted that he was ‘hearing voices,” ranting, thinking illogically, and delusional,’” a lawyer representing Roberts wrote in court filing.
The state acknowledged that prison records indicate Roberts has been diagnosed with various mental illnesses but argued that doesn’t mean he is incompetent.
“Roberts may well have a mental disease, but that doesn’t mean he is unaware of his situation or incapable of trying to prevent his execution,” a state lawyer wrote.
Last year Alabama became the first state to carry out an execution with nitrogen gas, a method that involves pumping nitrogen through a face mask and depriving the inmate of oxygen. The method has now been used in six executions — five in Alabama and one in Louisiana.
Roberts selected nitrogen as his preferred execution method over the other options, lethal injection or the electric chair. He made the selection before Alabama developed procedures for the method.
Wisconsin
Man sentenced to life in prison for killing cellmate because he was Black
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin man doing time for trying to kill his mother was sentenced Friday to life in prison for strangling his cellmate.
A jury found Jackson Vogel, 25, guilty of first-degree intentional homicide in the death of 19-year-old Micah Laureano at the Green Bay Correctional Institution last year. Vogel told investigators he killed Laureano because Laureano was Black and gay.
Brown County Circuit Judge Donald Zuidmulder sentenced Vogel to life in prison with no possibility for extended supervision, which is similar to parole.
Vogel told the judge he was sorry just before he was sentenced.
“I may not show remorse, I may not be able to understand emotion, I may not be able to understand remorse itself,” Vogel said. “That doesn’t mean that a person cannot be sorry for what they did
at any point in time. Because I am sorry.”
Vogel was already serving a 20-year prison term handed down in 2018 for repeatedly stabbing his mother, choking her and attempting to snap her neck in a failed attempt to kill her.
A guard found Laureano’s body hanging from the top bunk of the cell he shared with Vogel on Aug. 27, according to a criminal complaint. Laureano’s hands and feet were tied together with orange material.
Vogel, who is white, told the guard that he killed Laureano because Laureano was Black and gay, the complaint said. He said he knocked Laureano out, tied his hands and feet and strangled him.
Green Bay Correctional Institution, a maximum security facility, opened in 1898. Gov. Tony Evers has proposed closing the prison as part of an overhaul of the state correctional system.
Smugglers to be sentenced in 53 migrant deaths from 2022 human smuggling tragedy
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Two smugglers convicted of federal charges in connection with the deaths of 53 migrants found in the back of a sweltering tractor-trailer in Texas in 2022 face up to life in prison when they are scheduled to be sentenced Friday.
Felipe Orduna-Torres and Armando Gonzales-Ortega are to be the first of several defendants sentenced in the San Antonio tragedy, which remains the nation’s deadliest human smuggling attempt across the U.S.-Mexico border. A jury convicted the men in March of being part of a human smuggling conspiracy that resulted in death and injury.
Prosecutors described Orduna-Torres as the leader of the smuggling operation inside the U.S. and Gonzales-Ortega as his top assistant.
The immigrants had come from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico and had paid between $12,000 and $15,000 each to be smuggled into the United States, according to an indictment in the case.
They had made it as far as the Texas border city of Laredo when they were placed into a tractor-trailer with broken air conditioning for a three-hour drive to San Antonio.
As the temperature rose inside the trailer, those inside screamed and banged the walls of the trailer for help or tried to claw their way out, investigators said. Most eventually passed out. When the trailer was opened in San Antonio, 48 people were already dead. Another 16 were taken to hospitals, where five more died. The dead included six children and a pregnant woman.
Investigators said the Orduna-Torres and Gonzales-Ortega worked with human smuggling operations in Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, and shared routes, guides, stash houses, trucks and trailers. Orduna-Torres provided the address in Laredo where they would be picked up, and Gonzalez-Ortega met them there.
Five other men previously pleaded guilty to felony charges in the smuggling case, including the truck driver Homero Zamorano Jr., who was found hiding near the trailer in some bushes. Zamorano faces up to life in prison when sentenced in December. The other defendants are scheduled to be sentenced later this year.
It’s the deadliest among tragedies that have claimed thousands of lives in recent decades as people attempt to cross the U.S. border from Mexico. Ten immigrants died in 2017 after they were trapped inside a truck parked at a Walmart store in San Antonio. In 2003, the bodies of 19 immigrants were found in a sweltering truck southeast of San Antonio.
Colorado
Man pleads not guilty to hate crimes in attack on demonstration for Israeli hostages
DENVER (AP) — A man accused of hurling Molotov cocktails at a group of people who were demonstrating in Boulder, Colorado, in support of Israeli hostages pleaded not guilty Friday to federal hate crime charges.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman was indicted earlier this week on 12 hate crime counts in the June 1 attack. He is accused of trying to kill eight people who were hurt by the Molotov cocktails and others who were nearby.
Investigators say Soliman told them he intended to kill the roughly 20 participants at the weekly demonstration on Boulder’s Pearl Street pedestrian mall. But he threw just two of his over two dozen Molotov cocktails while yelling “Free Palestine.”
Soliman, who is also being prosecuted in state court for attempted murder and other charges, told investigators he tried to buy a gun but was not able to because he was not a “legal citizen.”
He posed as a gardener, wearing a construction vest, to get close to the group before launching the attack, according to court documents. He was also indicted for having explosives, which was included in the hate crime counts.
Federal authorities say Soliman, an Egyptian national, has been living in the U.S. illegally with his family.
Soliman is being represented in state and federal court by public defenders who do not comment on their cases to the media.
Prosecutors say the victims were targeted because of their perceived or actual national origin.
At a hearing last week, Soliman’s defense attorney, David Kraut, urged Magistrate Judge Kathryn Starnella not to allow the case to move forward. Kraut said the alleged attack was not a hate crime.
He said it was motivated by Soliman’s opposition to Zionism, the movement to establish and sustain a Jewish state in Israel.
An attack motivated by someone’s political views is not considered a hate crime under federal law.
Colorado
Funeral home owner accused of stashing nearly 190 bodies to be sentenced for fraud
DENVER (AP) — A Colorado funeral home owner accused of stashing nearly 190 dead bodies in a decrepit building and sending grieving families fake ashes is set to be sentenced Friday in federal court for cheating customers and defrauding the government out of nearly $900,000 in COVID-19 aid.
Jon Hallford, owner of Return to Nature Funeral Home, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud last year and faces a maximum of 20 years in prison. Federal prosecutors are seeking a 15-year sentence and Hallford’s attorney asked for 10 years.
He’s pleaded guilty in a separate state case to 191 counts of corpse abuse.
Hallford and co-owner Carie Hallford were accused of storing the bodies between 2019 and 2023 and sending families fake ashes. Investigators described finding the bodies in 2023 stacked atop each other throughout a squat, bug-infested building in Penrose, a small town about a two-hour drive south of Denver.
The morbid discovery revealed to many families that their loved ones weren’t cremated and that the ashes they had spread or cherished were fake. In two cases, the wrong body was buried, according to court documents. Many families said it undid their grieving processes. Some relatives had nightmares, others have struggled with guilt, and at least one wondered about their loved one’s soul.
Among the victims who spoke during Friday’s sentencing was a boy named Colton Sperry. With his head poking just above the lectern, he told the judge about his grandmother, who Sperry said was a second mother to him and died in 2019.
Her body languished inside the Return to Nature building for four years until the discovery, which plunged Sperry into depression. He said he told his parents at the time, “If I die too, I could meet my grandma in heaven and talk to her again.”
His parents brought him to the hospital for a mental health check, which led to therapy and an emotional support dog.
“I miss my grandma so much,” he told the judge through tears.
Federal prosecutors accused both Hallfords of pandemic aid fraud, siphoning the aid and spending it and customer’s payments on a GMC Yukon and Infiniti worth over $120,000 combined, along with $31,000 in cryptocurrency, luxury items from stores like Gucci and Tiffany & Co., and even laser body sculpting.
Derrick Johnson told the judge that he travelled 3,000 miles to testify over how his mother was “thrown into a festering sea of death.”
“I lie awake wondering, was she naked? Was she stacked on top of others like lumber?” said Johnson.
“While the bodies rotted in secret, (the Hallfords) lived, they laughed and they dined” he added. “My moms cremation money likely helped pay for a cocktail, a day at the spa, a first class flight.”
Hallford’s attorney, Laura H. Suelau, asked for a lower sentence of 10 years in the hearing Friday, saying that Hallford “knows he was wrong, he admitted he was wrong” and hasn’t offered an excuse. His sentencing in the state case is scheduled in August.
Carie Hallford is scheduled to go to trial in the federal case in September, the same month as her next hearing in the state case in which she’s also charged with 191 counts of corpse abuse.
Alabama
State sets August nitrogen execution for man convicted of 1992 shooting death
Alabama has scheduled an August execution with nitrogen gas for a man convicted three decades ago of shooting a woman in the head while she slept.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey set a Aug. 21 execution date for David Lee Roberts after the Alabama Supreme Court authorized the execution. If carried out, it would be the nation’s seventh execution by nitrogen gas, a method Alabama began using last year as an alternative to lethal injection.
Roberts, 59, was convicted of killing Annetra Jones in 1992 while a houseguest at Jones’ boyfriend’s home in Marion County. There have been 25 executions so far in 2025 in the United States.
Prosecutors said on the afternoon of April 22, 1992, Roberts came to the home, packed his belongings, stole money and shot Jones three times in the head with a .22 caliber rifle while she slept on the couch. Prosecutors said he poured gasoline or another flammable liquid on the floor and Jones’ body and set fire to the home to hide evidence.
A jury convicted Roberts of capital murder. Jurors voted 7-5 to recommend that he receive life in prison without possibility of parole. A judge overrode the recommendation and sentenced him to death. Alabama no longer allows a judge to override a jury’s sentence in capital cases.
The Alabama Supreme Court authorized Roberts’ execution at the request of the state attorney general’s office, which argued he has exhausted his appeals.
Roberts’ attorney had asked for a delay, arguing that Roberts, who has a paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis, is “probably incompetent to be executed” and should have an evaluation. The U.S. Supreme Court has prohibited the execution of a prisoner who is insane and not aware of his impending execution and of the reasons for it.
Roberts has a well-established history of psychotic illness, and his mental health has deteriorated after decades on Alabama’s death row, his lawyer wrote. A doctor diagnosed him in February with paranoid schizophrenia.
“On February 17, 2025, an ADOC psychologist who saw Mr. Roberts cell-side noted that he was ‘hearing voices,” ranting, thinking illogically, and delusional,’” a lawyer representing Roberts wrote in court filing.
The state acknowledged that prison records indicate Roberts has been diagnosed with various mental illnesses but argued that doesn’t mean he is incompetent.
“Roberts may well have a mental disease, but that doesn’t mean he is unaware of his situation or incapable of trying to prevent his execution,” a state lawyer wrote.
Last year Alabama became the first state to carry out an execution with nitrogen gas, a method that involves pumping nitrogen through a face mask and depriving the inmate of oxygen. The method has now been used in six executions — five in Alabama and one in Louisiana.
Roberts selected nitrogen as his preferred execution method over the other options, lethal injection or the electric chair. He made the selection before Alabama developed procedures for the method.
Wisconsin
Man sentenced to life in prison for killing cellmate because he was Black
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin man doing time for trying to kill his mother was sentenced Friday to life in prison for strangling his cellmate.
A jury found Jackson Vogel, 25, guilty of first-degree intentional homicide in the death of 19-year-old Micah Laureano at the Green Bay Correctional Institution last year. Vogel told investigators he killed Laureano because Laureano was Black and gay.
Brown County Circuit Judge Donald Zuidmulder sentenced Vogel to life in prison with no possibility for extended supervision, which is similar to parole.
Vogel told the judge he was sorry just before he was sentenced.
“I may not show remorse, I may not be able to understand emotion, I may not be able to understand remorse itself,” Vogel said. “That doesn’t mean that a person cannot be sorry for what they did
at any point in time. Because I am sorry.”
Vogel was already serving a 20-year prison term handed down in 2018 for repeatedly stabbing his mother, choking her and attempting to snap her neck in a failed attempt to kill her.
A guard found Laureano’s body hanging from the top bunk of the cell he shared with Vogel on Aug. 27, according to a criminal complaint. Laureano’s hands and feet were tied together with orange material.
Vogel, who is white, told the guard that he killed Laureano because Laureano was Black and gay, the complaint said. He said he knocked Laureano out, tied his hands and feet and strangled him.
Green Bay Correctional Institution, a maximum security facility, opened in 1898. Gov. Tony Evers has proposed closing the prison as part of an overhaul of the state correctional system.
