A New York woman is facing charges for allegedly trafficking human beings across the northern border for financial gain, following her indictment earlier this year. Stacey Taylor, aged 42, from Plattsburgh, was arraigned on Monday after an Oct. 2 federal grand jury in Albany accused her of participating in a scheme to smuggle individuals, primarily from India, into the U.S. from Canada, a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of New York confirmed.
Court records show that U.S. Border Patrol agents caught Taylor near Churubusco, New York, on the frigid morning of Jan. 20 with four foreign nationals in her vehicle who had just illegally crossed the border without proper inspection, among them three Indian nationals and one Canadian national; subsequent searches of Taylor's cellphone revealed evidence suggesting her involvement in several other similar illegal activities, including a stop in August and another implication in alien smuggling as recent as September.
Taylor is now facing charges of conspiring to engage in alien smuggling and four counts of alien smuggling for profit—with three of those counts being repeat offenses—which could lead to a mandatory minimum of five years imprisonment per count, with additional time for the repeated ones. The announcement was made by Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney John A. Sarcone III for the Northern District of New York.
The case is a product of Joint Task Force Alpha's collaboration, an initiative led by the Department of Homeland Security to curtail and dismantle human smuggling and trafficking networks across the Americas; this particular case has seen engagement from the Human Smuggling Unit in Washington D.C., Customs and Border Protection, and various Justice Department components, such as the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section, this according to the information provided by the U.S. Attorney's Office in their press release. The task force's work has culminated in over 425 arrests and 375 U.S. convictions so far.
Trial Attorney Chelsea Schinnour of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Stitt for the Northern District of New York are assigned to prosecute the case as part of Operation Take Back America, an initiative focused on addressing illegal immigration, organized crime, and protecting communities from violent criminals. It's emphasized that an indictment is simply an allegation, and all defendants are considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
