PHOENIX, Arizona (AP) -- He was once considered a lucky survivor, one
                 of a handful of people who had managed to stay alive during a harrowing
                 border crossing that left 14 illegal immigrants dead in the Arizona desert.

                 Now, 20-year-old Jesus Lopez-Ramos is accused of being one of the smugglers
                 who led them there, and he is facing charges that could carry the death penalty.

                 According to court papers, Lopez-Ramos, two other guides and about 30
                 would-be immigrants, ages 16 to 35, began the trip in Sonoyta, Lopez-Ramos'
                 hometown in the Mexican state of Sonora.

                 On May 19, they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border into the Cabeza Prieta
                 National Wildlife Refuge in southwest Arizona. They drove for about an hour
                 and a half, then set out on foot.

                 The group had been told they would only have to walk a short distance to a
                 highway, according to court papers.

                 Instead, they were facing 70 miles (113 kilometers) of dry, bleak terrain known
                 as "The Devil's Path." Their trek would become the deadliest crossing at the
                 border since 1987, when 18 Mexican men died in a locked railroad boxcar near
                 Sierra Blanca, Texas.

                 The second day of the trip, with water running out, one guide and three
                 immigrants turned back, court papers say. The documents don't say whether
                 they were among the 14 found dead.

                 On the morning of the third day, Lopez-Ramos and another guide told those
                 remaining that they would go fetch water. They took $90 from the men,
                 promised to return and told the immigrants to stay put.

                 The immigrants said they started walking when the guides didn't return and
                 resorted to drinking their urine and trying to get what little moisture they could
                 from cactus to stay alive. The first group the Border Patrol found was 30 miles
                 (50 kilometers) from the interstate and had spent more than four days in
                 temperatures reaching 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius).

                 Lopez-Ramos had made it within five miles (eight kilometers) of Interstate 8,
                 the group's destination, when he was picked up. Another man was found dead
                 nearby; court papers and officials didn't say whether he was believed to be
                 another smuggler.

                 The charges against Lopez-Ramos include bringing in illegal aliens, conspiracy
                 to bring in illegal aliens and harboring illegal aliens, court documents show.

                 His attorney, Bruce Yancey, didn't immediately return a telephone message
                 seeking comment Tuesday.

                 The other survivors, Mexicans from the states of Veracruz and Guerrero, had
                 all been released into Border Patrol custody by Tuesday after being treated for
                 severe dehydration and related kidney damage.

                 James Metcalf, the Yuma-based attorney for the survivors except the suspected
                 guide, said they were being held as material witnesses and were to be
                 transferred Wednesday to a federal detention center in Florence. He planned to
                 ask for their release or immediate return to Mexico.

                 The bodies of the 14 found dead were to be returned to their families on
                 Wednesday, said Eduardo Rea, a deputy consul at the Mexican Consulate in
                 Calexico, California. He declined to comment on the arrests.

                 Family members in the poor, highland villages of Veracruz said the men had
                 been seeking a better life after plummeting coffee prices left them no other
                 choice.

                 Since 1998, 991 people have died crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, most from
                 heat exposure or drowning, according to the Border Patrol. More than 5,000
                 others have been rescued by agents.

                 Meanwhile, border agents searched for three missing men Tuesday after an
                 unconscious and dehydrated immigrant told authorities he feared three men
                 accompanying him were lost in the deserts south and west of Tucson.

                 The man told agents that he and the other men paid a smuggler $800 each to
                 lead them to Phoenix but that the smuggler abandoned them after telling them he
                 would return with water.

                 And on Sunday, a Border Patrol helicopter pilot spotted the body of a man
                 whose nephew said had been traveling with a group of about 14 others being
                 smuggled from Mexico when the elderly man no longer could keep up and was
                 left behind.

                   Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.