By Michael Donoghue
Vermont News First

BURLINGTON — A longtime boxing coach from the Elizabeth, N.J. area has been sentenced in Vermont to 18 months in federal prison for helping bring nine illegal immigrants from Ireland across the border in 2024 – just five months after he was captured for an earlier human smuggling case in Northern New York.

The U.S. Border Patrol found Tyshan Murray, 45, with four adults and five children stuffed in his Nissan Murano in Richford during a traffic stop about 1 a.m. Sept. 8, 2024.  Two young children were located in the rear cargo compartment sitting on luggage without seatbelts or safety seats, the Border Patrol reported.

Murray, who has been employed by the city of Elizabeth, N.J. to teach boxing, admitted that he did transport the nine illegal immigrants with the intent to further their unlawful presence in the United States when he picked them up near Drew Road, court records show.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Gilman had sought a 33-month prison sentence due to the dangerousness of the case and that Murray had been caught in Fort Covington, N.Y. for smuggling a United Kingdom (U.K.) citizen in April 2024 – just five months before his subsequent arrest.  Gilman said that was giving Murray a break because the sentencing guidelines, which are advisory, had proposed between 33 and 41 months in prison. 

Murray, who also had a Union, N.J. address, got hooked into the human smuggling business by boxing associates, including parents of children that he was training as boxers, according to Assistant Federal Defender Barclay Johnson.   Johnson proposed a time served sentence – two months. 

“Mr. Murray was recruited by individuals associated with the boxing gym where he worked in New Jersey. These were individuals that Mr. Murray viewed as friends and he took pride in training their children at the gym. While these were noncitizens without status, they were anything but desperate and poor,” Johnson said in his sentencing memo.

“Instead, these were Irish or U.K. citizens who sought to cross the border to work at very high paying construction jobs. They were also not his friends. While these individuals were taken into custody along with Mr. Murray, he is the only individual who has been prosecuted,” he wrote.

Chief Federal Judge Christina Reiss told Murray that once he is discharged from prison he will be on supervised release for three years.  Reiss ordered Murray to begin his prison term June 23.  She agreed to ask the Federal Bureau of Prisons to place Murray in a prison close to his hometown.  He will get credit for about two months he was in custody after his arrest.

The federal sentencing had been delayed a few times to allow Murray to resolve some state charges in New Jersey, including a violation of probation.  He has an extensive criminal record, including at least three felony convictions, court records show.

Murray’s silver SUV with out-of-state plates had been spotted by a Border Patrol Agent on Vermont 118 in West Berkshire less than an hour before the arrest.  Murray pulled into a driveway until the Border Patrol Agent passed.  Later during the traffic stop, Murray claimed he was headed to Franklin Road to buy a 2006 Peterbilt truck for $5,000 that he planned to use for his trucking business, the Border Patrol reported.

Murray said he was lost and ended up on a dirt road where he encountered his nine passengers, who asked him for a ride, the Border Patrol reported.  Murray opened his cellphone and appeared to delete information, but it was soon taken away from him by an investigator, according to a supervisory Border Patrol Agent.

One of the adult illegal immigrants reported he was provided a phone number for Murray by an associate in Canada, court records show.  He said he made arrangements with Murray directly to meet the group at the end of Drew Road, the Border Patrol noted in court papers.  The illegal immigrant initially said he discarded the cellphone after making the arrangements with Murray, but later admitted he had deleted details from his phone.  He refused to provide details of the smuggling operation, including any payments and said he was in fear of Murray, court records show.

Johnson noted that Murray – who has eight children including five minors — has been living with his fiancé and his children in Bloomfield, N.J. and recently had also served as a boxing coach at Park Elite Boxing in Roselle Park, N.Y.    Johnson reported Murray was a New Jersey Golden Gloves State Champion in 2013 for the 178 pound class and competed nationally in the Golden Gloves.  

In the 2024 smuggling case in Northern New York, federal agents watched a man in dark clothing cross the international border, walk on foot through an open field and get into a black Audi, the Border Patrol said.  During a subsequent traffic stop the illegal immigrant admitted his unlawful entry and Murray was identified as the driver making the pickup.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan A. Ophardt in Vermont praised the investigative work of the Border Patrol agents.

“The smuggling of aliens across our northern border creates significant national security risks and endangers the lives of the people unlawfully entering our country. Those like Tyshan Murray, who reap illicit profit from alien smuggling, should receive significant punishment,” Ophardt said

Ophardt said this smuggling case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime.