Jose Alberto Santacruz-Benitez, a Mexican national with multiple violent felony convictions, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for illegal reentry into the United States, marking his third conviction under 8 U.S.C. § 1326. He had been deported five times and now faces three years of supervised release following his sentence from U.S. District Judge Jennifer A. Dorsey, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Santacruz-Benitez’s criminal history includes a conspiracy to commit kidnapping, multiple felony drug possession charges, and two prior federal unlawful reentry convictions. In September 2022, he was also arrested for shooting five people at a Las Vegas birthday party, resulting in an attempted murder conviction, as reported by the U.S. Attorney’s Office…