Alien Who Returned to USA Sentenced to Prison

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK - Jorge Lopez-Castaneda, 61, of Mariel, Pinar del Rio, Cuba, was sentenced yesterday to serve forty-eight months imprisonment for illegally reentering the United States, announced United States Attorney Richard S. Hartunian. Lopez-Castaneda was sentenced by Senior United States District Judge Thomas J. McAvoy in Albany, New York.

Lopez-Castaneda is a citizen of Cuba who was convicted of Arson in the First Degree in Florida in 1996. Sometime thereafter, he voluntarily left the country. In 2013 he was denied admission to the USA when he tried to cross the border from Mexico. In 2015, he was arrested in Cortland, New York, with no record of having legally entered the country or having applied to do so.

This case was investigated by the United States Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Carina H. Schoenberger.