A 31-year-old Connecticut resident, an Ecuadorian national, has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges related to allegedly attempting to help three people — including a man who collapsed and died — illegally cross the border from Canada into Vermont, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Vermont.
Maria Constante-Zamora appeared in U.S. District Court in Burlington on Wednesday and is currently in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service, according to a press release from federal prosecutors.
The charges stem from an encounter involving Border Patrol agents, Constante-Zamora and three men in Derby on Sunday. Agents said they watched on camera as three people walked from Canada into the United States near Goodall Road, suggesting an illegal border crossing.
Agents responding to the area saw a vehicle with Connecticut license plates stop near the woods where the group was likely to exit, then flash its lights and accelerate quickly, according to prosecutors.
Agents initiated a traffic stop, identified Constante-Zamora as the driver, then saw three people standing on the side of the road, including one who was “clutching a tree and appeared to be in distress,” prosecutors wrote in the release.Â
Federal prosecutors did not name the man in distress. But in a separate press release earlier this week, Vermont State Police identified him as Jose Leos Cervantes, 45, of Aguascalientes, Mexico.
Cervantes collapsed, and Border Patrol agents gave aid to him until emergency medical services arrived, according to prosecutors. He was taken to North County Hospital in Newport, where he was pronounced dead.
Prosecutors said Cervantes’ cause of death had not been determined as of Wednesday. State police said it is not considered suspicious.
The other two people ran back toward Canada. One of them, Oscar Soto-Acosta, was found and detained as a witness, according to prosecutors.
If convicted of the charges, Constante-Zamora faces up to five years in prison.