DEL RIO, Texas — A Mississippi man has been sentenced to a decade in prison for smuggling more than a dozen illegal immigrants in a cloned delivery truck, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS).
Cezanne Megel Patterson, a 29-year-old from Jackson, Mississippi, was sentenced on July 24, 2025, to 10 years of confinement in a Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison. Patterson was arrested on August 30, 2024, after a DPS Trooper stopped what appeared to be a Lowe’s Home Improvement Store delivery truck along US-277 outside of Del Rio. During the search, 17 illegal immigrants were found crammed inside a three-foot-wide false compartment with no air ventilation, stated the DPS.
“Patterson’s case is the perfect example of the dangerous lengths smugglers will go to when risking human lives for profit,” said DPS South Texas Region Chief Arturo Dela Garza. “Human smuggling is a serious crime, and I am proud of the collaborative work between our State Troopers and local prosecutors to hold smugglers, like Patterson, accountable.”…