Opening statements delivered in federal human smuggling trial in northern Minnesota

Lawyers made opening statements in Fergus Falls in the federal trial of two men accused in a human smuggling case which resulted in the death of a family of four from India.

The family froze to death in a snowstorm in January 2022 after getting separated from a larger group trying to cross illegally from Canada into the U.S.

Steve Shand and Harshkumar Patel are facing four charges linked to human smuggling. Both men have denied the charges.

The two men, who are both residents of Florida, are alleged to have been involved in an ongoing operation to smuggle Indian nationals from the state of Gujerat in that country into the U.S.

Patel is himself originally from Gujerat and, having been denied entry into the U.S., entered illegally through Canada.

The organizers of the smuggling operation would charge people who wanted to come to the U.S. tens of thousands of dollars. Using fake student visas, they would get the people into Canada, then take them to the U.S. border and have them walk across.

Prosecutors say Patel coordinated with co-conspirators in Manitoba to arrange the crossings into Minnesota. He hired Shand to pick up the migrants on the Minnesota side and then drive them to Chicago.

A separate investigation has found the migrants who got to Chicago were forced to work as underpaid staff at a chain of restaurants run by another Indian national.

In January 2022, four members of the Patel family — 39-year-old father Jagdish, 37-year-old mother Vaishali, their 11-year-old daughter Vihangi, and their 3-year-old son Dharmik — got separated from a larger group in a snowstorm as they tried to cross the border. The windchill that day was -35 degrees, and they were not dressed properly.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police found the family, all dead, just yards from the border. The 3-year-old Dharmik, wrapped only in a blanket, was found in his father's arms.

Shand was arrested soon after on the U.S. side in a van with other migrants who had made it across the border. Patel was arrested earlier this year.

Opening statements

A jury of eight men and six women heard the opening statements.

Prosecutor Ryan Lipes said this case is about two men putting profit over lives. He said the prosecution will prove its case using flight records, phone and rental records as well as financial transactions.

He said they will prove Patel coordinated Shand’s actions. He said they will also show the men knew how dangerous a border crossing at night in winter could be. The prosecutor described how Royal Canadian Mounted Police found the bodies of the Patel family in what they described as a “vastness of nothingness.”

When the defense presented its statements, Patel’s attorney Thomas Leinenweber said while he believes the state’s witnesses will be delivering testimony they believe to be correct, there will be no evidence that connects his client to the situation. He said his client feels lucky that he is now in the United States, and he enjoys the constitutional protections of being presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Shand’s attorney Lisa Lopez said her client’s job was just to drive people, and he didn’t ask questions. She said he provided a taxi service for people from Minnesota to Chicago, and that he was used by Patel. She said Shand and Patel were not friends, there was no conspiracy, and they hardly knew each other.

First witnesses will be called Tuesday at 9 a.m.

Earlier in the day, before jury selection even began, the defense team asked that Federal Judge John Tunheim rule that seven photographs of the frozen family be removed as evidence because they would — as the defense put it — cause “extreme prejudice to the jury.” The prosecutors argued the photos were needed to show jurors the challenging terrain of the area.

The judge ruled the images may be used.

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