A 45-year-old from Mexico who prosecutors say was living in the United States illegally will spend the rest of his life behind bars for his role in killing a whistleblower who exposed his multi-million-dollar scheme to systematically employ and defraud undocumented workers. A federal jury in Georgia unanimously found Juan Rangel-Rubio guilty on a spate of felony charges in connection with the 2017 fatal shooting of Eliud Montoya, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.

The DOJ listed the following as crimes for which Rangel-Rubio was convicted: “Conspiracy to Retaliate Against a Witness; Conspiracy to Kill a Witness; Conspiracy to Conceal, Harbor and Shield Illegal Aliens; and Money Laundering Conspiracy.”

The charges carry a statutory minimum sentence of life in prison, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia.

Two other co-defendants, Rangel-Rubio’s brother, Pablo Rangel-Rubio, 53, and Higinio Perez-Bravo, 52, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to kill Montoya, a U.S. citizen who was gunned down near his home in Garden City, Georgia on August 19, 2017. He had reported the Rangel-Rubios and Perez Bravo’s scheme of hiring and mistreating undocumented workers to federal authorities just prior to his murder.

“This jury verdict brings resounding resolution to any doubts about the culpability of these defendants in this horrific conspiracy to kill a man who threatened their illegal and lucrative labor-trafficking...

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