District Court Judge Curtis V. Gomez on Wednesday sentenced 36-year-old Brice Todman of St. John to six months incarceration on a charge of bringing illegal aliens into the United States, U.S. Attorney Gretchen C.F. Shappert reported.
In Federal District Court on St. Thomas, Gomez also sentenced Todman to three years supervised release after his incarceration, ans ordered that he pay a $100 special assessment, forfeit the $4,000 paid to him by the illegal aliens, and forfeit the vessel used to bring the illegal aliens into the Virgin Islands.
According, to court documents, at about 9 p.m. on Oct. 21, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations apprehended a Virgin Islands-registered vessel in the area of North Haulover Bay, St. John after agents saw that the vessel was operating with no lights. After agents stopped the vessel, they saw five male individuals on board. Todman was identified as the captain and the other four male individuals were from the Dominican Republic, Argentina and Venezuela and did not have permission to be in the United States.
Two of the four illegal aliens admitted to agents that they had paid Todman $ 1,000 to transport them from Tortola, BVI, to St. John.
The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations and U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Unit and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sigrid M. Tejo-Sprotte.
