HARLINGEN, Texas (Border Report) — A Mississippi man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after using a fake store delivery truck to smuggle migrants near the U.S.-Mexico border, Texas Department of Public Safety officials confirmed Wednesday.
Cezanne Megel Patterson, 29, of Jackson, Mississippi, was sentenced last Thursday following his arrest last year in a case that drew widespread attention after DPS released footage of the incident.
Patterson was stopped on August 30, 2024, while driving along a highway in Kinney County near Del Rio, Texas. The vehicle resembled a Lowe’s Home Improvement delivery truck, but troopers quickly discovered something was off. Inside a narrow, 3-foot-wide hidden compartment, they found 17 migrants packed tightly with no ventilation…