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Posted: 3:59 PM- A 30-year-old Guatemala man accused of causing the traffic deaths of eight immigrants in San Juan County appeared in court Wednesday in Salt Lake City.
With a calm demeanor, Rigoberto Salas-Lopez listened through an interpreter as U.S. Magistrate Judge David Nuffer explained the defendant's rights.
The judge appointed a public defense attorney, Viviana Martinez, to Salas-Lopez, who is charged with one count of transporting illegal aliens resulting in death.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Kennedy said the charge is punishable by death or life in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Kennedy verified Salas-Lopez was in the country illegally and that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a detainer on the suspect.
A preliminary hearing was scheduled for May 2 at 1:45 p.m. An arraignment hearing will follow at 10 a.m. on May 3. Both hearings will be before Magistrate Brooke Wells.
Before the hearing, Salas-Lopez asked Martinez to call his parents in Guatemala to thell them he was OK.
Salas-Lopez, a native of Guatemala, was taken into custody on Monday after the Chevrolet Suburban he was driving rolled in south of Bluff, killing eight of the 14 people on board.
Salas-Lopez has acknowledged he was the driver of the car, according to the complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City. Witnesses say he was sexually abusing a female passenger when the accident occurred.
Authorities have identified only one of the fatal victims, Hermilo Velasquez, 18, of Chiapas, Mexico, the brother of the alleged sexual abuse victim.
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