Thread: Man sentenced for sexual slavery of smuggled teen

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Man sentenced for sexual slavery of smuggled teen
By Kristen Zambo

Friday, May 12, 2006

A Lee County man asked for forgiveness Thursday, but a federal judge said he broke American laws and must take responsibility for repeated rapes a young girl suffered in his home from two other men.

In Lee County’s last remaining human trafficking-related case going through the court system, Guatemalan immigrant Pascual Miguel Sebastian, 32, of North Fort Myers, was sentenced to 16 months in prison for letting the girl and his wife’s brother live in their home, although they were illegal immigrants.

Sebastian was indicted in May 2005 after a teenaged Guatemalan girl accused him, his wife and his wife’s brother of forcing her to live as their slave.

“I would like to ask for forgiveness for what I have done. And God will bless all of you,” Sebastian said in court before sentencing. “I know I did what’s being said. But it was Fernando. Because it was family I received him. Otherwise, I never would have done it.”

The girl was 13 when, she says, she was smuggled into the country with Fernando Pascual Francisco, 22, also of North Fort Myers. He pleaded guilty in March to charges of sex trafficking of children and bringing in and harboring illegal aliens. The girl, now 15, said she was forced into domestic servitude and was raped by Pascual Francisco and his brother, Mario Pascual, in Sebastian’s home.

Sebastian pleaded guilty in January to harboring an illegal alien. He faced a maximum of 10 years in prison. But without a criminal record, and because of his cooperation in these cases, he was eligible for a sentence of between 12 months and 18 months in federal prison.

With credit for almost one year in jail, he is expected to serve a couple more months behind bars.

Sebastian’s defense attorney, John Coleman, declined to comment on the sentence after the hearing. But he said another woman has been rearing Sebastian’s children, and his landscaping business is in ruins.

“He’d purchased trucks. He’d purchased a home. He’d basically lived the American dream,” Coleman said after the sentencing.

He told U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Hernandez Covington that Sebastian instructed Fernando Pascual Francisco not to break American laws and that he couldn’t be physically violent here. But, Coleman said, these were his wife’s relatives.

“Husbands have limited abilities in certain circumstances with respect to his wife and her relatives,” Coleman said. “He was advised they were husband and wife. Under those circumstances, it’s not rape, with all due respect.”

And Sebastian wasn’t home from 7 a.m. to about 8 p.m. on weekdays because he owned a successful landscaping business, so he didn’t witness what may have occurred, Coleman said. He said there’s proof the girl went out to dinner with the family and with them on beach outings. So she wasn’t restrained, he said, or barred from leaving, as are many human trafficking victims.

“When she went to the beach, that’s when (the girl) started having an affair with Mario,” Coleman told the judge.

That’s when the judge’s temper flared.

“I think she was forced to have sex with him. I wouldn’t call that an affair,” she snapped. “They were here illegally. So he broke that law. He has to accept responsibility for those actions.”

Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Doug Molloy also said there was no affair. “She was used and given to the brother (Mario Pascual) to excuse a gambling debt.”

Sebastian has been held in the Lee and Hardee county jails since his May 20, 2005, arrest. That’s when the girl accused the trio of smuggling her into this country and making her work for the family and serve as Fernando Pascual Francisco’s sex slave.

The girl — who is not being named because of the nature of the charges — told investigators her mother and stepfather sold her to Pascual Francisco when she was 11. He worked for her stepfather as a chauffeur.

Pascual Francisco fathered the girl’s 2-year-old son, Francisco, whose birthday is in June.

Molloy proposed a lighter sentence than the maximum allowed, saying Sebastian has cooperated with prosecutors.

“The defendant is being held responsible for something he helped to defuse, including soon the release of the material witness (Mario Pascual) for criminal prosecution,” Molloy said during the hearing. “Because of that man the victim didn’t have to take the stand. But for that man’s cooperation, I don’t think the man who beat and raped her would have pled.”

Covington said she understood the importance of protecting the girl.

“We don’t want to punish the victim twice by having to relive the nightmare,” the judge said.

Defense lawyers and prosecutors are trying to work out obtaining special visas for Sebastian and his wife, Matilde Pascual Andres, 26, for their cooperation. A T1 visa is a special type of visa granted to human trafficking victims that allows them legally to remain in the United States. The new visa category was added for trafficking victims with the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 and took effect Aug. 25, 2003.

A prominent local human trafficking activist said Sebastian shouldn’t receive such a visa.

“He doesn’t qualify for a T visa,” said Anna Rodriguez, founder of the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking. “That’s for victims. It’s for human trafficking victims.

“The most he could do is an S visa — a snitch visa,” Rodriguez added. “But that’s only for a year.”

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... 20408/1075


Girl's captor gets 10 years
Cape man kept her as sex slave

By Jacob Ogles
jogles@news-press.com
Originally posted on August 02, 2006

A Cape Coral man who admitted keeping a Guatemalan girl as a sex slave — beating, raping and impregnating for a year and a half — was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison for sex trafficking and harboring an illegal immigrant.

Fernando Pascual sat quietly as a federal judge described his crimes as "despicable and absolutely horrible."

"You cannot force someone to have sex with you," U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Hernandez Covington said. "You held this girl in your house as a prison. It is wrong."

Pascual's sister Matilde Pascual Andres, who let her brother and the girl stay at her home, was sentenced Tuesday to a year and 10 months in prison.

Hernandez Covington would not accept Andres' guilty plea until she took responsibility for breaking the law. Andres originally objected to sentencing because she said she did not know Pascual was raping the girl because he was behind closed doors.

Andres and Pascual join Pascual Sebastian Miguel, Andres' husband, in federal prison. He was sentenced in May to one year and four months for harboring illegal immigrants.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Molloy said lower sentencing times were negotiated with Miguel and Andres because they helped persuade Pascual to plead guilty.

Molloy said a plea from Pascual was accepted so the girl would not have to testify.

"This was negotiated with the consent of the victim, who had a definite interest in not telling and reliving the story," he said.

The victim was not at the sentencing.

Pascual's attorney, Landon Miller, said the defendant had wanted to file objections, but the attorney could not in good faith object when a 10-year sentence had been negotiated.

If not for that arrangement, Hernandez Covington said, she would have issued a harsher sentence. She said she accepted the deal so the victim would not suffer further.

"She should not be raped again," Hernandez Covington said. "She should not suffer in court to come and testify against you."

Pascual bought the girl in Guatemala from her parents when she was 11 for 2,000 Quetzel, or about $263, and had her smuggled to the Unites States.

He moved in with Andres and Miguel in April in Cape Coral in 2003. There, the girl did household chores for the family and acted as sex slave for Pascual.

Neighbor Irma Rivera learned of the girl's situation while the girl was pregnant and had to go to the hospital. The girl was then about 12 or 13.

The Department of Children & Families later put the girl in Rivera's custody as a foster child for a period of time.

An injunction filed in December 2003 barred Pascual from interacting with the girl, but he later tried to abduct her and her baby.

Hernandez Covington, during sentencing, ordered Pascual to never again have contact with the girl.

The News-Press in 2005 sent a reporter to Guatemala and informed the girl's mother for the first time of what happened in the United States

The girl, now about 16, and her 2-year-old child, live in Fort Myers.

The saga is not over. Mario Pascual, Fernando's brother who reportedly took the girl as a slave for a short time to consolidate a $2,000 debt, faces four rape charges in circuit court. He has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled for trial before Judge Lynn Gerald on Aug. 28.

Family values The ones that don't at the border

Originally Posted by steelerbabe

Family values The ones that don't stop at the border