A Guatemalan woman is recovering after she was allegedly raped by a man who was supposed to help smuggle her to Houston.
Cameron County Sheriff’s Deputies arrested Taurino Rodriguez and Javier Salgado-Martinez on state human trafficking charges on Monday.
Authorities added aggravated kidnapping, unlawful restraint and sexual assault charges against Rodriguez based on the Guatemalan woman’s allegations.
Both men appeared before Cameron County Magistrate Judge Luis Saenz on Wednesday morning.
According to investigators, their alleged victim is an illegal immigrant who paid $7,000 dollars to be smuggled to Houston in October.
The woman traveled from Guatemala to Monterrey and then on to Reynosa before being brought into the Rio Grande Valley.
She alleges that she declined Rodriguez’s advances and that’s when he took her to a tire shop off Commerce Street in Harlingen.
Rodriguez is accused of raping the woman and telling her that, “There’s nothing she could do and that he does that to all the women he helps smuggle.”
The woman claims she was held her against her will for at least one day without food or water before being taken to a stash house in La Feria.
The Guatemalan woman and other illegal immigrants were moved but caught by Border Patrol near Falfurrias.
Court records show that she made her first raised the rape allegations while being housed at the Willacy County Detention Center in Raymondville in November.
A probable cause affidavit shows that Rodriguez admitted to helping to smuggle the woman and even taking her to the tire shop but denies raping her.
Both Rodriguez and Salgado-Martinez told Judge Saenz in court that they are illegal immigrants from Mexico.
Salgado-Rodriguez remains in custody under a $75,000 dollar bond while Rodriguez remains jailed under $185,000 dollars in bonds.
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