MIAMI – A judge in Miami federal court Friday sentenced a 25-year-old woman who admitted to helping smuggle a group of Cuban migrants -- including a 9-month-old baby, children, and teenagers -- who died at sea.
Yaquelin Dominguez-Nieves collected about $11,500 from the migrants’ families in South Florida with the promise of a voyage across the Florida Straits to the United States, according to federal prosecutors.
Earlier this year, Dominguez-Nieves, of Sebring, pleaded guilty to conspiring to smuggle aliens into the U.S. She was back in court Friday before U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom, who read the names of 16 victims.
“Not a single day goes by without me feeling the loss of those people,” Dominguez-Nieves said through tears while shackled at the wrists and wearing a tan jail jumpsuit during the sentencing hearing.
Bloom sentenced Dominguez-Nieves to 7½ years in prison and three years of supervised release. The grief-stricken families of the victims said the November 2022 tragedy at sea changed their lives.
Arturo Verdecia Jr. was part of a group of about 18 Cuban migrants who boarded a small fishing boat without life jackets at Playa Jaimanitas to get away from the communist island, according to prosecutors.
After the boat sank roughly 30 miles into the voyage, the U.S. Coast Guard rescued the only two survivors and they reported the boat captain did not seem to know what he was doing.
Verdecia, 28, and 15 others, according to prosecutors. Three of their bodies washed up in Monroe County after drowning.
“He had a future because he was a very smart boy,” his father, Arturo Verdecia, said in Spanish after leaving the courtroom. “He came with the desire for success in this country, but look what happened. Tragically, he was lost in the high seas.”