17 Year Old Carjacker Goes to Trial as an Adult-San Antonio Smugglers Get Prison Time

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A judge has ruled that a teen charged with capital murder in a fatal shooting during a San Antonio carjacking will be tried as an adult.
With the judge's ruling Wednesday, Aaron Nicholas Ruiz faces up to life in prison with the possibility of parole if convicted of fatally shooting 18-year-old Christopher Hinojos. He would have faced a maximum of 40 years if he'd stayed in the juvenile system.
Ruiz, now 17, was 16 when Hinojos was killed.

The San Antonio Express-News reports Ruiz also faces two counts of robbery, one count of aggravated robbery, one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, one count of harassing a police officer, one count of assaulting a police officer and one count of evading arrest in a motor vehicle.

Information from: San Antonio Express-News, http://www.mysanantonio.com

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A San Antonio woman who led a cell that smuggled as many as 200 people into the U.S. for the Zetas cartel has been sentenced to just more than five years in prison while her brother was sentenced to four years.

The San Antonio Express-News reports 26-year-old April Gaitan and 29-year-old Armando Gaitan were sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty to conspiracy charges for their role in the ring that smuggled immigrants from Mexico and Central America through Nuevo Laredo and Villa Hidalgo, Mexico.

Officials say the ring charged immigrants $2,500 each and hid them in houses and motels, first along the border and then in houses in San Antonio, Austin and in rural locations.

Homeland security officials dismantled the ring of at least 28 smugglers in September.

Information from: San Antonio Express-News, http://www.mysanantonio.com