Suspected illegal aliens make court appearance

PORTLAND -Five men and one woman believed to be illegal aliens were charged with using false Social Security numbers during initial appearances at U.S. District Court in Portland on Tuesday. They were among a group of people arrested early Monday in a Caribou apartment house used by some of the 14 immigrant workers killed in a woods road accident in September.

Details were sketchy on the series of hearings that reportedly took more than a full day to complete. The workers, believed to be Mexican, required interpreters. They appeared before Magistrate Judge David Cohen because the Bangor magistrate judge, Margaret J. Kravchuk, was not available.

According to a court official, the group was ordered to be detained for 10 days. They will be taken to Bangor where detention hearings and preliminary examinations will be scheduled.

Making court appearances were German Rincon-Maza, Isaias Garcia-Hernandez, Gilberto Fernandez-Gomez, Justina Santiago-Lopez, Mancio Esteban-Hernandez, and Eleuterio Perez-Jacob. Ages of the suspected illegal aliens were not given.

The group was arrested after the Border Patrol was called by Caribou police to help deal with an intoxicated person with a possible language problem who kept returning to Ouellette’s Variety store at the corner of the New Sweden Road and Route 161. The Border Patrol agents accompanied the man to his apartment across the intersection from the store. Eight people subsequently were taken to the Fort Fairfield office of the Border Patrol.

It could not be determined Tuesday why only six of the original eight detainees were sent to court.