The following information was provided by the U.S. Department of Justice, Western District of Texas.
A New Jersey man was sentenced in federal court in Del Rio to 120 months in prison for his role in a failed human smuggling attempt, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas Justin R. Simmons announced.
On April 6, 2023, Texas Department of Public Safety troopers working in La Pryor stopped a vehicle and detained one of several backseat occupants who fled on foot before the vehicle sped away. The detained individual was determined to be a Mexican national without lawful status in the United States.
According to court documents, Cameron Alexander Ford, 23, of Camden, New Jersey, was identified as the owner of an abandoned cellphone found by troopers in the same area.
The vehicle involved had been rented at the Philadelphia International Airport and was reported stolen two days after the smuggling event, on April 8.
Photos found on the abandoned phone led investigators to Ford, whose name also yielded an outstanding robbery warrant from the Philadelphia Police Department. Location data from the phone showed Ford stayed at a hotel in Eagle Pass on April 5 and April 6.
Text conversations and other evidence on the phone revealed a smuggling conspiracy between Ford and co-defendant John Klotz, also known as “Remy,” who investigators determined is the son of the woman who reported the rental vehicle stolen.
Investigators determined Ford and Klotz drove the rental vehicle from New Jersey to Eagle Pass in the days leading up to the smuggling attempt. After fleeing from DPS troopers on April 6, the two men managed to fly from San Antonio to Philadelphia.
Further search warrants identified a third conspirator, Van Donovan Brown, also known as “Sledge,” as the individual who facilitated the smuggling attempt through a WhatsApp group chat. Records also showed Brown paid Klotz through Cash App.
Ford was indicted along with Klotz and Brown on Oct. 2, 2024. He was arrested on April 1, 2025, and pleaded guilty on Sept. 29, 2025, to one count of conspiracy to transport undocumented migrants while placing lives in jeopardy.
Ford’s 10-year sentence will run consecutive to a 47-month sentence he previously received from the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia for carjacking and aiding and abetting.
Klotz and Brown have also pleaded guilty and are scheduled to be sentenced on April 23. A fourth defendant, Jeffrey Ray Jilpas, was named in a superseding indictment on Feb. 11 and arrested on Feb. 20.
U.S. District Judge Ernest Gonzalez presides over the case.
“This smuggler thought that he could come to Texas, break the law, flee from law enforcement, and then resume his life back home as if nothing happened,” Simmons said. “Thanks to a lengthy and thorough investigation by our law enforcement partners and federal prosecutors’ dogged commitment to justice, his home for the foreseeable future will be a prison cell.”
“This 10-year prison sentence is a testament to the resolve and expertise of Homeland Security Investigations in confronting the threat posed by human smuggling,” said acting Special Agent in Charge John A. Pasciucco of HSI San Antonio.
Homeland Security Investigations and the Texas Department of Public Safety investigated the case with assistance from the U.S. Border Patrol, the Zavala County Sheriff’s Office and the Frio County Sheriff’s Office.
