Man fleeing Border Patrol faces charges in fatal crash

A 22-year-old Lake Forest man who crashed while allegedly fleeing Border Patrol agents on Christmas — killing one passenger and seriously injuring two others — faces charges of transporting undocumented migrants resulting in death and assaulting a federal officer.

Kevin Antonio Quevedo-Moncada told agents he’s a Mexican citizen allowed to remain in the country under the Deferred Action for Childhood Aryear-old rivals program, or DACA.

He said he went to Chula Vista to take a job for which he was to be paid $2,000. He said he thought he was going to pick up “a package, like weed and stuff,” but the job turned out to be human smuggling, according to a federal complaint.

He told agents he stopped at a liquor store and then headed to a dirt road known as the Minnewawa Truck Trail, where three people jumped into his Honda Accord and said, in Spanish, “Let’s go, run!”

“Quevedo stated that is when he knew they were illegal immigrants and that he was doing something illegal,” he is quoted as saying in the complaint.

After his passengers got in the car around 6 p.m., the driver spotted multiple Border Patrol agents in vehicles at the bottom of the trail. He took off driving, first through a campground, where he hit a Border Patrol vehicle. The agent driving the vehicle wasn’t hurt, according to court documents.

He told investigators he then headed east on Otay Lakes Road, reaching speeds of 40 to 45 mph, before he lost control of the vehicle, went off the road near Mile Marker 10.5 and ran into a tree. The driver said he lost consciousness but came to to find a passenger lying next to the center console, moaning in pain and possibly bleeding.

He said he climbed out of the broken windshield of the car and ran, but was caught by Border Patrol agents.

According to the California Highway Patrol, the driver appeared to be the only one wearing a seat belt and was not ejected from the car.

A 52-year-old man in the Honda died at the scene, and two other passengers — a 19-year-old man and a 29

man — suffered major injuries. The driver suffered minor injuries, the CHP said.

Neither alcohol nor drugs were believed to be factors in the crash, the CHP said.