A federal judge on Friday sentenced a former San Diego County man to 12 years in prison for his role in a human smuggling ring that disappeared at least two people who the group kidnapped and held for ransom after promising to help them cross the border. One of those people was later found slain, while the other is also believed to have been killed.
Read more Escondido City Council won’t hear update on ICE shooting range contract
Isaac Jimenez, 30, pleaded guilty in June to two charges, including a conspiracy count, related to bringing undocumented immigrants into the U.S. for financial gain. As part of his plea, he admitted that his co-defendants likely killed the two victims, and that he continued working with them afterward.
“You preyed upon the most vulnerable people,” U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino told Jimenez, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors said Jimenez “employed himself as a human trafficker for most of his adult life” and had a long history of human-smuggling-related convictions.
In early 2024, after apparently fleeing to Mexico amid an Escondido police investigation into his alleged assault of his spouse, Jimenez was arrested in Mexico in connection with a killing at his apartment complex linked to the Sinaloa cartel, prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
Cartel members then intervened with Mexican authorities to facilitate Jimenez’s release from custody, according to prosecutors. In return, Jimenez began working for the group.
According to court documents, in September 2024, the group kidnapped and demanded ransom payments from the family of a Mexican father of four who had lived undocumented in the U.S. since he was 2 years old and was trying to return. Jimenez admitted that he twice collected ransom payments from the man’s wife.
The kidnappers later cut off contact with the family, who have not heard from him since and have heard rumors that he was killed. Jimenez admitted in his plea that, to the best of his knowledge, the man was killed in Mexico.
A few months later, in December 2024, a man who Jimenez had previously helped cross the border contacted him for help smuggling his girlfriend into the U.S., according to court documents. Jimenez agreed, but while the woman was in the process of following his directions, members of Jimenez’s group kidnapped her and began demanding ransom payments from her boyfriend and her family.
Read more Police release video of suspect in Pacific Beach homicide
Again, the kidnappers eventually cut off contact with the family, according to court documents. About a year later, in November 2025, the woman’s remains were discovered in Tijuana.
“There’s a fantasy of human smugglers as being on the side of the vulnerable,” U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said in a statement. “Then there’s the truth: They are liars, blackmailers and killers.”
Jimenez and his defense attorney, Douglas Brown, asserted that he was only involved in smuggling and did not know about the kidnapping and ransom plots carried out by his alleged co-conspirators.
“Mr. Jimenez readily admitted involvement in smuggling people across the border,” Brown told the Union-Tribune. “Unfortunately, the plan was hijacked by cartel members in Mexico. Mr. Jimenez was not involved in the kidnapping, extortion or violence, but will be paying the price for his part in the conspiracy.”
In a letter to the judge, Jimenez wrote that he was regretful and remorseful, and that he has tried to make things right by cooperating with authorities.
“I would like to apologize first to the victims for the pain they suffered because of these events,” he wrote. “I also ask their families for forgiveness — I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart.”
Brown wrote in his sentencing memorandum that Jimenez’s co-conspirators are “likely beyond U.S. jurisdiction.” Some appear to be in Mexican custody, he wrote, while the alleged ringleader is believed to have been killed by a rival cartel.
