United States v. Javier Andres

MEMORANDUM

Defendant Javier Andres imported a 16-year-old girl (the “Victim”) from rural Guatemala to Arizona. Andres arranged the Victim’s passage in return for an agreement that she work in his home for three years to repay her purported smuggling debt. Andres and his wife told the Victim that she could not leave until she personally paid her debt. Indeed, they declined an offer by her brother-in-law to pay it. Moreover, they threatened to have her hunted down if she left without permission. Later, Andres raped and impregnated the Victim, who suffered severe pain and a second-degree perineal tear during delivery.

After he was indicted, Andres agreed to plead guilty to one count of Harboring an Alien for Private Financial Gain. See 8 U.S.C. § 1324 (a)(1)(B)(i). The plea agree ment stipulated that he would receive a within-Guidelines sentence, which the PSR ultimately calculated to be between 21 and 27 months. At sentencing, the district court rejected the agreement after finding ' that the stipulated range would not reflect the seriousness of Andres’s conduct. Nevertheless, when the district judge offered him the opportunity to withdraw his guilty plea, Andres declined to do…