Miami man charged with smuggling migrants in the Bahamas for thousands of dollars
A Miami man charged with smuggling more than a dozen migrants from the Bahamas to South Florida has been declared a “fugitive” after he failed to appear in Miami federal court for his arraignment.
A magistrate judge has issued a bench warrant for the arrest of Milton Morgan Ferrell III, 37, the son of a once-prominent Miami lawyer and Democratic political fundraiser, Milton M. Ferrell Jr., who died in 2008.
The defendant’s attorney, the federal public defender’s office in Miami, could not be reached for comment.
Ferrell was stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard on the evening of March 13 — when the coronavirus outbreak was starting to grip South Florida — as he commandeered a sport fishing boat with 13 undocumented migrants on board.
The vessel, a Sea Fox 286 Commander that was reported stolen from a North Bay Village marina three days earlier, was halted about 18 miles east of Key Biscayne, according to court records.
At first, Ferrell said he was the boat captain and that he was traveling with his girlfriend and 13 friends on a trip from Coconut Grove to the Bahamas, according to the federal criminal complaint. When he was asked to identify any of them, Ferrell said he didn’t know their names.
“You all know what this is,” Ferrell told the Coast Guard crew, according to the complaint affidavit. “I tried, and I got caught.”
The crew officers brought Ferrell, his girlfriend, Fiona Bucher, and the 13 migrant passengers to the Coast Guard station in Miami Beach, where the boat captain was questioned by Homeland Security Investigations agents. Three of the passengers — Nicholas Carvell Brown, Dexter Andrew Carindon and Oral Dwayne Williams — had been previously deported from the United States, the affidavit said.
Ferrell told agents that he had stolen the boat and gone with his girlfriend to Bimini, where he met a Bahamian friend who made arrangements for him to smuggle the migrants to South Florida, according to the affidavit. Ferrell said he agreed to transport the undocumented passengers because he was broke and wanted to use the money to buy an apartment in Miami.
Ferrell had $3,600 in U.S. and Bahamian currency on him when was arrested, the affidavit said. Ferrell admitted that he had smuggled migrants from the Bahamas to the United States in the past, and that the latest load was his biggest ever.
Agents also interviewed some of the migrant passengers, who said they paid between $3,000 and $6,000 to be smuggled to the Bahamas and then paid the same amount of money to be illegally transported into the United States, according to the affidavit.
After his arrest, Ferrell made his first appearance in Miami federal court on March 16, when was granted a $50,000 bond co-signed by his mother. After Ferrell and three of his undocumented passengers were charged by indictment a few days later, he was scheduled for arraignment on March 30.
But before the arraignment, Magistrate Judge Lauren Fleischer Louis issued a bench warrant for Ferrell’s arrest after investigators said he had “absconded.” When he failed to appear in federal court for the arraignment, Magistrate Judge John J. O’Sullivan found he was a fugitive and issued another warrant for his arrest.
Ferrell is charged with conspiring to encourage and induce aliens to enter the United States and related offenses, including transporting a stolen vessel for foreign commerce, according to an indictment filed by prosecutor Brian Sattler.
According to state court records, Ferrell was charged with aggravated assault with a firearm in January of this year but the case was dismissed after no action was taken by Miami-Dade prosecutors. He was also charged with possessing cocaine and marijuana in 2005 and 2006, but the cases ended with the adjudication withheld.