ADEL, Ga. (WTXL) — The Mexican national who injured a deputy during his 2019 arrest was sentenced to more than four years in prison for illegal entry and violation of supervised release.
Pedro Santos-Garcia, 42, of Mexico, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Louis Sands on Thursday after Santos-Garcia entered a guilty plea on July 30, 2019 to one count of illegal reentry. He was sentenced to spend 42 months in prison.
The indictment shows the defendant was found unlawfully in the United States in Cook County, Georgia in April 2019, after previously being deported on eight different times from 2002 to 2017.
Santos-Garcia was sentenced on both the new illegal reentry charge as well as a revocation for violation of his supervised release from a prior federal felony conviction for illegal reentry.
There is no parole in the federal system.
Santos-Garcia was found to have violated his supervised release on April 29, 2019, when deputies with the Cook County Sheriff’s Office in Adel, Georgia arrested the defendant for driving and obstruction offenses.
At the time of the defendant’s arrest, he gave officers false identifying data, pushed the arresting officer’s hands away, fled across a multi-lane interstate highway, crossed multiple lanes of traffic, jumped the concrete median and crossed to the other side of the interstate.
Deputies chased the defendant across the highway, putting themselves at substantial risk of death or serious physical injury.
After deputies apprehended him, Santos-Garcia took a deputy’s taser.
During the struggle, one deputy suffered a broken wrist.
Immigration officials investigated and determined Santos-Garcia was in the United States illegally, had a final order of removal, and had numerous prior removals. On May 3, 2019, Cook County officials transferred the defendant to the custody of immigration officials.
