Woman who ran Avondale stash house for migrants sentenced to prison

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TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - A 43-year-old Phoenix woman who admitted to supervising a stash house for migrants who entered the U.S. illegally has been sentenced to 21 months in federal prison.

A Feb. 1 sentencing was set in federal court in Tucson for Amalia Gonzalez-Lara after she pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to transport and harbor more than 100 migrants in the country illegally for profit.

Her punishment includes three years of supervised release after her sentence.

The conspiracy charge is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. But a plea agreement between Gonzalez-Lara and federal prosecutors said a sentence of 4.75 years would be the maximum she faced under federal guidelines.

The plea agreement said federal agents found 20 migrants, all from Mexico or Guatemala, inside a home in the Phoenix suburb of Avondale on Jan. 12 and that the migrants had been transported through southern Arizona en route to metro Phoenix.

Gonzalez-Lara admitted in the plea agreement that she "managed and coordinated stash house and transportation operations for at least 100 illegal aliens."

A co-conspirator, Sergio Vazquez-Flores, 46, of Goodyear, faces a March 15 sentencing after pleading guilty to the same conspiracy charge on Nov. 5.