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A bucket of peppers, two guns and a stolen car: woman sentenced to prison

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    STRASBURG TOWNSHIP, Pennsylvania (WGAL) — A York County woman was sentenced after she drove a stolen car containing stolen guns to a Lancaster County garden and began picking peppers without permission, according to the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors said Kimberly Schwartz, 36, of York Township, will serve one and a half to five years in prison. She pleaded guilty on July 20 to the following charges:

– Three counts of receiving stolen property
– Two counts of carrying firearms without a license
– Burglary
– Resisting arrest
– Agricultural vandalism
– Providing false identification to a law enforcement officer
– Driving under the influence
– Possessing a controlled substance
– Seven other summary offenses

According to the district attorney’s office, the charges stem from an August 2025 incident in the 900 block of Strasburg Pike in Strasburg Township.

Investigators said Schwartz drove a stolen vehicle that was connected to the theft of two semiautomatic handguns.

Schwartz then drove to a residence’s property and took a five-gallon bucket from their garage, according to the district attorney. She then used the bucket to pick peppers from the victim’s garden without permission, officials said.

According to police, the resident told Schwartz that she was welcome to purchase the peppers, but Schwartz left without paying.

Investigators said Schwartz was found about an hour later driving in a parking lot in the area, and initially refused to identify herself before providing a false name. Police noted that Schwartz’s driver’s license was suspended due to a previous DUI conviction.

“Throughout the interaction Schwartz refused to follow troopers’ orders and was argumentative and combative,” the district attorney’s office said. “While being arrested Schwartz continued to pull her hands away while being handcuffed, failed to place her feet in the car and had to be assisted in doing so, unbuckled herself multiple times, refused to walk and ultimately was placed in a caged police vehicle due to safety concerns.”

According to police, troopers found a partially consumed bottle of alcohol and suspected methamphetamine in the stolen car.

Investigators said the stolen firearms were also recovered.

Authorities believe Schwartz was under the influence of alcohol and a controlled substance at the time based on her behavior. The district attorney said she also refused to submit to chemical testing.

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Inside ‘the Pool’: Fugitive arrested in alleged cross-border car trade scheme

▶ Watch Video: On the ground look from Eagle Pass, Texas, as illegal border crossings remain historically low Along the Texas-Mexico border, it's known as "the Pool." And this week, federal authorities say they caught one of the men accused of helping run it.Every year, drivers known as transmigrantes transport used cars bought in the United States through Mexico to be resold in Central America. Federal prosecutors say a group of South Texas businessmen found a way to monopolize the industry that took those cars across the border — fixing the fees, pooling their revenues and squeezing businesses that refused to comply. At the center of the scheme, authorities say, was Carlos Martinez, a Mission, Texas, businessman known as "Cuate" who controlled the transmigrante forwarding agency near the Los Indios border crossing in Texas' Rio Grande Valley. Prosecutors allege Martinez — the son-in-law of a former notorious Gulf Cartel leader — helped turn a cluster of supposedly competing businesses into a tightly controlled network of fixed prices, shared revenue, cash payments and intimidation. He pleaded guilty to federal charges and was sentenced to prison time.Working alongside him, prosecutors allege, was Rigoberto Brown, a dual U.S.-Mexican citizen who served in managerial roles on Martinez's behalf, helping him pull off the alleged scheme. Brown was charged in November 2022 with conspiring to fix prices and divide the market and with conspiring to monopolize the transmigrante forwarding business. Then he disappeared.For nearly four years, authorities say, Brown lived as a fugitive in Mexico. This week, they caught him near McAllen, Texas. He is set to be arraigned Friday in federal court in Houston. An alleged price-fixing 'empresa'For years, much of the traffic moved by transmigrantes was funneled through one place.Before March 2021, Mexican regulations required commerce to enter Mexico through the Los Indios Port of Entry in South Texas, according to the federal indictment. That created a concentrated industry around the crossing, where forwarding agencies helped drivers handle the customs paperwork and other requirements needed to get their vehicles into Mexico.Thousands of vehicles moved through the system, generating millions of dollars a year in forwarding agency revenue, according to prosecutors. Federal authorities allege a group of operators found a way to control it.Beginning as early as 2011, prosecutors say, forwarding agencies agreed on prices instead of competing for customers, choosing to inflate prices and divide the market among themselves.Participating businesses allegedly collected their revenues centrally and divided the money according to agreed-upon percentages. Prosecutors say the operation was so organized, participants used charts and spreadsheets to keep track of the arrangement and communicated about prices and revenues throughout meetings and in calls, texts and exchanges on social media and messaging applications.Some participants referred to the collective enterprise as the "empresa" — Spanish for "the company" — according to the indictment. But prosecutors say controlling prices was only one part of the operation.Vehicles carrying secondhand cars and other goods line up in Los Indios, Texas, as they prepare to go through Mexico on Dec. 19, 2006. Many of the transmigrantes come from as far as Washington, New York and California. AP/Valley Morning Star, Gabe Hernandez
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