Human Trafficker Gets 15 Years In Prison For Forced Labor
Human trafficking is not simply a sex trafficking problem in the United States. It is a general labor market problem.
Adam Lidgett of Law 360 reports that the ringleader of a human trafficking organization was sentenced to just more than 15 years in prison for luring Guatemalan minors to the United States under false pretenses and forcing them to work on egg farms in Ohio. Here is the U.S. Department of Justice press release about the case.
U.S. District Judge James G. Carr of the Northern District of Ohio sentenced Aroldo Castillo-Serrano to 188 months in prison and Ana Angelica Pedro-Juan, his co-defendant, to 10 years in prison. The two were accused of finding workers from Guatemala, some only 14 years old, and falsely promising them good jobs and an education in the U.S., the Justice Department said. “These defendants forced minors to work around the clock and live in inhumane conditions, while threatening them and their relatives,” Acting U.S. Attorney Carole S. Rendon said in a statement. “Today’s prison sentence underscores the severity of these human trafficking cases, but also should serve as a reminder that these cases happen all around us in plain sight.”
The Justice Department said Castillo-Serrano would lure the Guatemalan workers into the U.S. only to transport them to a dilapidated Marion, Ohio trailer park. The workers, eight minors and two adults, were forced to work physically demanding jobs at a farm for up to 12 hours a day for little pay. Some of the work included debeaking chickens and cleaning their coops, the Justice Department said. Castillo-Serrano would threaten the workers to make sure they were compliant.
Castillo-Serrano pled guilty in August to conspiracy to commit forced labor, forced labor, witness tampering and alien harboring, while Pedro-Juan pled guilty in December to conspiracy to commit forced labor. They are also forced to pay more than $67,000 in restitution to the victims of the fraud.
The case was brought in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.
KJ