Woman gets 15 years in prison on gun-running conviction
Published 10:05 pm Tuesday, October 31, 2017
GULFPORT (AP) — A woman convicted of running guns to Mexico has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.
U.S. District Judge Halil S. Ozerden sentenced Paula Villalva-Patricio on Thursday in Gulfport following her conviction by a jury in July on charges including conspiracy and smuggling. The Winston-Salem, North Carolina, resident was also fined $20,000.
Court papers show that Patricio’s nephew, Javier Molina, told investigators in 2012 that Patricio ran a gun-smuggling ring. Javier was stopped in Mississippi in 2011 in a pickup carrying nine rifles, five shotguns, eight pistols, 902 rounds of ammunition, and other items. Authorities located the truck after secretly attaching a tracking device during an earlier traffic stop in the same Mississippi county.
Both Molina and Jose Luis Santos-Garcia, Patricio’s husband, were sentenced to prison in 2012.