Farmworker tied to St. Johns Co. police death suspect charged with hauling undocumented crew

Federal prosecutors said Tuesday they were charging a Mexican farmworker with transporting undocumented immigrants, including one arrested after the May death of a St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office sergeant.

Olidier Roblero-Perez, 34, picked crops in Florida and Georgia with two cousins and brought along a man he recently met, Vergilio Aguilar-Mendez, to work with them harvesting peppers in Elkton, a complaint filed in Jacksonville’s federal court said.

An affidavit said Roblero-Perez drove a van that carried him and the others between a farm on County Road 13A and a Super-8 Motel on Florida 16, which was where Aguilar-Mendez was approached May 19 by Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Michael Paul Kunovich.

A struggle developed between Kunovich, 52, and Aguilar-Mendez, an 18-year-old Guatemalan, that lasted about six minutes, the Times-Union reported in July. Kunovich developed a medical problem afterwards and died, leading to aggravated manslaughter charges against Aguilar-Mendez that are still pending, according to court records in St. Johns County.

Crime: Guilty: Immigrant murder suspect politicized by DeSantis in Jacksonville is sentenced

Roblero-Perez and his companions checked out of the hotel May 21, but court records said one of the men left a phone number with a Sheriff’s Office investigator.

A Homeland Security agent used that phone contact him last month, while the men were working at a farm in Moultrie, Ga., then arranged to interview them, according to an affidavit.

Workers needed: Florida's E-verify law creating hole in agriculture, construction, hospitality jobs

Roblero-Perez told an investigator he was a Mexican who had walked into the United State in 2007 and lived in Fort Myers when he wasn’t doing farm work, according to the affidavit. He said he collected cash payments for work by him and his cousins, then split the pay.

Asked if he knew his cousins were in the country illegally, the affidavit said Roblero-Perez answered “oh yeah, I knew, but since we were working, it’s my family, so you know, I couldn’t tell them there was not any work.”

Authorities asked for court approval to hold the cousins, Eliaquin and Conaidein Ortega-Gonzalez, as material witnesses in the case involving Roblero-Perez, who could face a legal maximum punishment of five years in prison.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Immigrant tied to St. Johns police death charged with immigration crime