MIDLAND An Odessa trucker was sentenced to 24 months in a federal prison after he was convicted for smuggling illegal aliens into the country, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office's Western District of Texas.

Derl Dwayne Justice, 36, was sentenced by United States District Judge Robert Junell on Thursday morning at the federal court in Midland after Justice pleaded guilty to the charge back in August. Justice will also have 3 years of probation after he's released from prison.

According to the release, Justice drove a truck on I-20 near Odessa on April 13, 2007, when border patrol agents pulled him over, searched his truck and found seven Mexican immigrants hiding in his sleeping compartment. Justice told agents after his arrest that day that he was hired by an individual in Ciudad Juarez to transport the Mexicans from El Paso to a hotel in Odessa for $1,800.