A ruling by a U.S. appeals court has affirmed the decision and punishment for one of the individuals convicted of human trafficking in a case that resulted in the tragic deaths of a family of four from India due to freezing temperatures while trying to cross the Manitoba-U.S. border in 2022.
Earlier this year, Harshkumar Patel sought to have his guilty verdict and sentence overturned after a Minnesota jury found him guilty in November 2024. Patel, an Indian citizen, received a sentence of slightly over 10 years in prison following his arrest in Chicago in 2024. He was identified as the mastermind behind the trafficking scheme and enlisted his co-defendant, Steve Shand from Florida, to transport the migrants after they crossed the border from Manitoba to Minnesota.
In a recent ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld the sentencing decision of the lower court, citing sufficient evidence to support the jury’s findings. The panel of three judges dismissed Patel’s arguments contesting the district court’s sentencing guidelines calculations, stating they lacked validity. The court also rejected Patel’s claim that the charges against him were duplicative and multiple, as he failed to raise these concerns for appeal.
The tragic incident involved the discovery of the frozen bodies of Jagdish Patel, 39, his wife Vaishali, 37, their daughter Vihangi, 11, and their son Dharmik, 3, in a snow-covered field near the U.S. border on January 19, 2022.
Meanwhile, an upcoming court session in St. Paul, Minnesota will address the appeal filed by Shand’s lawyer seeking to overturn his client’s conviction and sentence. Harshkumar Patel, who is not related to the deceased Patel family, is expected to be repatriated to India upon completing his prison term.
