Migrants 'nothing but dollar signs' to accused human smugglers, U.S. prosecutors say in closing arguments
Defendants argue they were wrongfully accused, duped into scheme to take people from Manitoba to U.S.
Jurors in the Minnesota trial of two alleged human smugglers arrested after a family from India froze to death while trying to walk across the Manitoba-U.S. border in 2022 were given three very different stories to weigh during closing arguments on Thursday.
Was accused smuggler Harshkumar Patel really wrongfully accused in the case? Was Steve Shand actually just an unsuspecting cab driver duped by Patel into shuttling migrants into the U.S. after they walked across the international border illegally?
Or, as prosecutors allege, were the pair co-conspirators in a scheme to bring Indian migrants into Canada on student visas for hefty sums of money in December 2021 and January 2022, before dropping them at the border and telling them to walk across — even during a blinding snowstorm?
"You have now seen how these two men put profit above people's lives, and you have seen the consequences of those choices. That's what this case is about," prosecutor Michael McBride told the jury on the fourth day of Patel and Shand's trial in Fergus Falls, Minn.
"To them, all of those people were nothing but dollar signs."
The trial comes nearly three years after the deaths of four members of the Patel family (who were no relation to Harshkumar Patel).
The frozen bodies of Jagdish Patel, 39, his wife, Vaishali, 37, their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi, and their three-year-old son, Dharmik were found in a snow-drifted Manitoba field just 12 metres from the U.S. border later on the morning of Jan. 19, 2022.
The temperature that day was –23 C, but the wind chill made it feel like the –35 to –38 range.
WATCH | Jury hears closing arguments in trial of 2 men charged after family died crossing Manitoba-U.S. border:
Shand was arrested near the border around the same time with other Indian nationals in the van he was driving. Harshkumar Patel, who is accused of co-ordinating the smuggling and hiring Shand, was arrested in Chicago this past February.
McBride urged the jury to find both accused guilty on all four of the human smuggling-related counts they face. They allege the men smuggled several groups across the border in the weeks leading up to the Patel family's deaths, and failed to call for help or call off the trip the frigid night the family tried to cross — even though they knew the risks of the extreme weather.
Accused 'may be stupid,' but was unwitting participant: defence
Shand's lawyer Aaron Morrison gave a far different version of events, characterizing his client as a struggling taxi driver in Florida who, in meeting Patel, saw a chance to make some money but got few details about exactly who he'd be driving.
Morrison said that's how Shand became an unwitting participant in the scheme, which he described as a common tactic among criminals looking to insulate themselves from consequences.
"You can now step back and say, 'Of course, you should have known better.' But that's not the way it works — you have to look at it while it's happening," Morrison told jurors.
"Mr. Shand may be naive, he may be stupid, he may have been in your mind like, 'How in the heck?' But they have not proved that he knew beyond a reasonable doubt that he was doing anything illegal."
Meanwhile, Harshkumar Patel's lawyer Thomas Plunkett said the suggestion Shand was duped by Patel is "outrageous," and said the government had introduced no evidence linking his client to the operation.
"The case hasn't been proven. The government, good people, hasn't done their duty," Plunkett told the jury.
Prosecutors argued Patel texted Shand about the alleged smuggling trips. The phone number used in those texts — which court heard Shand saved in his phone as "Dirty Harry" — was the same one Patel provided for his immigration file when he first entered the U.S.
Manuel Jimenez, U.S. Homeland Security's lead agent on the case, testified Thursday that investigators also found a bank account they said was Patel's. It had the same address that was on the driver's licence Patel was carrying when he was arrested in February, and had the phone number used to communicate with Shand linked to it, Jimenez told the court.
That bank account was used to make purchases in the Florida area in December 2021, but it appears it stopped being used after the day the Patel family died, he testified.
Court heard while Shand and his wife deposited more than $36,000 US in their bank accounts during the window where the human smuggling was alleged to have happened, there was no evidence of large deposits made in the account investigators linked to Patel during that time.
Shand's lawyer also questioned why a number of people connected with the case were not interviewed by investigators, including a woman whose texts with Shand the night the Patel family died were used as evidence against him.
That also included Fenil Patel, a man already charged by police in the Indian state of Gujarat with culpable homicide and human smuggling for his alleged role in the death of the Patel family. He is also not related to the family or the accused.
"Did you want to try? A man who left a family of four to die? You didn't think it might be a good idea?" Morrison asked Jimenez, to which the agent said he didn't "believe that was an option."
Jurors also heard testimony from Winnipeg forensic pathologists Angela Miller and Charles Littman, who did the Patel family's autopsies and said it took days before the procedures could be done because of how frozen their bodies were.
All four died from hypothermia.
While the family members were wearing several layers of clothing, that wasn't enough for how long they were outside in the extreme cold, Miller said.
FBI cellular communications analysis agent Nicole Lopez also presented jurors on Thursday with a series of maps she plotted out using data from cellphones prosecutors said belonged to the accused.
Those maps appeared to show Shand making several trips to and from the international border and several to Chicago in December 2021 and January 2022, when prosecutors allege they were running their smuggling operation. The phones Lopez tracked were also in contact with each other around the same times, the agent testified.
During cross-examination, Lopez acknowledged the tracking data reflects approximate locations, not exact pinpoints — and said she didn't know who actually had the cellphones in their possession at any given time.
Jurors are expected to be given instructions before beginning deliberations Friday.
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