Thread: 3 charged with forcing illegal alien minors to work at Ohio egg farms

3 charged with forcing immigrant minors to work at Ohio egg farms

Created on Thursday, 02 July 2015
Written by THE BELLEFONTAINE EXAMINER STAFF

In an indictment unsealed today, a federal grand jury charged three people with smuggling Guatemalan minors into the United States and forcing them to work at egg farms in Ohio, law enforcement officials said.

A fourth defendant was charged with harboring illegal aliens as part of a 15-count superseding indictment.

The indictments were announced by Steven M. Dettelbach, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Stephen D. Anthony, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Cleveland office, and Marlon Miller, Special Agent in Charge for HSI Detroit, which covers Michigan and Ohio.

The defendants and their associates smuggled workers as young as 14 or 15 from Guatemala to the United States, falsely promising them that they would be able to attend school in the United States.

The defendants transported the minors to a trailer park in Marion, Ohio, where they ordered them to live in dilapidated trailers and to work at physically demanding jobs at Trillium Farms for up to 12 hours a day. The work included cleaning chicken coops, loading and unloading crates of chickens, de-beaking chickens, and vaccinating chickens, according to the indictment.

The defendants threatened workers with physical harm and withheld their paychecks in order to compel them to work. The indictment lists eight victims under the age of 18 and two adult victims.

Indicted are: Aroldo Castillo-Serrano, 33, of Pecos, Texas; Conrado Salgado Soto, 52, of Raymond; Ana Angelica Pedro, 21, of Columbus and Juan Pablo Duran Jr., 23, of Marysville.

Aroldo Castillo-Serrano, Conrado Salgado Soto, and Ana Angelica Pedro Juan are charged with a labor-trafficking conspiracy. Castillo-Serrano is also charged with 10 individual counts of forced labor; Salgado Soto and Pedro Juan are charged in eight of those 10 counts.

Castillo-Serrano and Salgado Soto are also charged with harboring illegal aliens, as is an additional defendant, Pablo Duran Jr.

Castillo-Serrano and Pedro Juan are charged with witness tampering for trying to persuade another person to give false information to the FBI. Pedro Juan herself is also charged with lying to the FBI.

“This indictment charges the defendants with putting profits ahead of common decency,” Dettelbach said. “Human beings are not commodities like farm products. Those who are somehow confused about that difference need to learn that lesson.”

“These defendants preyed upon vulnerable children and families,” Anthony said. “This investigation revealed how they used threats, humiliation, deprivation and other means to keep these minors working and enriching the defendants.”

“Human trafficking and forced labor are forms of modern-day slavery,” Miller said. “Criminal organizations involved in human trafficking truly damage their victims and undermine basic human decency. HSI, FBI, U.S. Border Patrol as well as our state and local law enforcement partners will continue to aggressively combat human trafficking and forced labor in all its forms.”

Each of the 11 trafficking counts and the witness tampering count carries a sentence of up to 20 years. Each count of harboring illegal aliens and lying to the FBI carries a sentence of up to 5 years.

An indictment is merely an accusation, and a defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. The investigation is ongoing.

This case is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Cleveland Office, Mansfield Resident Agency; and the Department of Homeland Security. The case is being jointly prosecuted by Civil Rights Division Trial Attorney Dana Mulhauser and Assistant U.S. Attorney Chelsea Rice.

http://www.examiner.org/news/51619-3...ohio-egg-farms

Men charged with forcing young migrants to work on egg farm sent to jail in Ohio

Published April 12, 2016 Fox News Latino

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  (PHOTO BY JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES)

TOLEDO, OHIO (AP) – A federal judge sentenced two men to prison on Monday for taking part in a scheme to smuggle teens into the U.S. and keep them as virtual slaves at an Ohio egg farm, but he delayed sentencing for the ringleader after learning he had not given up properties taken from the victims' families.

In 2014, federal agents raided a dilapidated trailer park near Marion where the 10 young Guatemalans had been living with no heat and little food. Some said they were lured with the promise of attending school in the U.S. or plucked out of custody at the Mexican border.

Eight were under age 18.

The teens and young men were forced to work at the egg farm and turn over most of their earnings to pay for their passage to the U.S., investigators said.

One of the young men spoke in court Monday, revealing he was 17 when he was smuggled over the border and thought he would be attending classes.

The man, whose name was shielded to protect his identity, said when he complained, the smuggling operation's leader, Aroldo Castillo-Serrano, called his father.

"He threatened my father with three bullets," the young man said through a translator. "That's when I started to worry about my family."

While he was speaking, Castillo-Serrano sat on the other side of the courtroom with his arms folded, glaring at the young man.

Prosecutors say he engineered the scheme, making victims' family members sign over deeds to their property in Guatemala to pay for transporting the boys, with assurances they would be enrolled in school.

U.S. District Judge James Carr delayed part of the sentencing because he said the properties were still held by relatives of Castillo-Serrano. He angrily told him to get rid of the properties by late June or face a much stiffer sentence.

The judge told him that he "will see to it that nobody profits anyway whatsoever from the crimes you committed."

Castillo-Serrano, a Guatemalan who is in the U.S. illegally, most likely faces at least a decade in prison. He agreed to plead guilty last year to forced labor conspiracy, forced labor, witness tampering and encouraging illegal entry into the country.

Trillium Farms, which produces more than 2 billion eggs per year at various farms around central Ohio, said it was unaware of what was happening at its farm. It hasn't been charged.

The judge on Monday sentenced Conrado Salgado Soto to just over four years in prison.

Prosecutors said he ran a company that managed the employment of the victims.

Pablo Duran Jr., who prosecutors say helped transport the victims to the farm, was sentenced to just over a year in prison.

Both men apologized in court.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/new...?intcmp=hplnws

Send them to tent city with Sheriff Joe...then deport them after time served. I do not want to pay for 4-10 years of their incarceration! BUILD THE WALL. Stop the drugs, human trafficking, diseases and terrorists coming in. Obama needs to be held accountable for this.

Published June 27, 2016Fox News Latino

The leader of a scheme to smuggle Guatemalan teens into the U.S. and keep them as virtual slaves at an Ohio egg farm was sentenced Monday by a federal court to at least 15 years of prison, the Toledo-based news outlet The Blade reported.

Castillo-Serrano is a Guatemalan who is in the U.S. illegally. The federal judge said Castillo-Serrano will be deported back to his native country after he's served his sentence.

Some of the workers he smuggled were reportedly as young as 14 or 15 years old. According to The Blade, they were forced to work for up to 12 hours a day de-beaking and vaccinating chickens, loading crates and clean coops.

More than 40 workers, all Guatemalan, were removed during the December 2014 raid.

U.S. District Court Judge James Carr delayed sentencing Aroldo Castillo-Serrano in April after learning that he hadn't given up properties taken from the victims' families.

Prosecutors say he made victims' family members sign over deeds to their property in Guatemala to pay for transporting the boys, with assurances they would be enrolled in school.

Castillo-Serrano agreed to plead guilty last year to forced labor conspiracy, forced labor, witness tampering and encouraging illegal entry into the country.

Public court records don't yet indicate whether the property issue has been resolved. A message was left Friday for his attorney.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/new...ohio-egg-farm/