Thread: FL:Immokalee brothers get prison sentence in aliens case

Immokalee brothers get prison sentence in aliens case

By Naples Daily News staff report
Originally published 11:32 a.m., Friday, December 19, 2008
Updated 4:14 p.m., Friday, December 19, 2008

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2008/dec ... iens-case/

BONITA SPRINGS — Two brothers each received 12-year federal prison sentences today for enslaving undocumented workers on an Immokalee tomato farm.

Their mother was released on time served, and another family member received a 46-month sentence.

Cesar and Geovanni Navarrete were described by Department of Justice attorney Susan French as the "young patriarch" and the "enforcer," respectively, of a family that beat, restrained and threatened the lives of the workers they housed on their property. Cesar is 27 years-old. Geovanni is 21.

Both men pleaded guilty in September to charges of conspiracy to deprive civil rights, conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens for commercial advantage, social security fraud and illegal re-entry to the country.

In a 16-count indictment released in August, government prosecutors alleged five members of the Navarette family kept 15 employees as slaves when they quit paying them for their work. The family beat their employees multiple times, the indictment alleged, and they locked them in tomato box trucks for hours at a time.

Two of those workers spoke before the court today. One of them, Mariano Lucas Domingo, described an occasion where he was locked in a truck by Cesar, as well as multiple beatings by Geovanni.

"Bosses do not beat their people up, who are working with them," he told the court.

Cesar Navarrete apologized before Judge John E. Steele.

"I know I committed a mistake," he said.

His brother showed less contrition. Geovanni Navarrete asked Steele how the workers, who are undocumented, could be allowed to testify in court against him. Steele noted that Navarrete, himself, was in the country illegally.

French, a trial attorney with the Department of Justice's Human Trafficking Unit, pointed out that the government had given legal status to the men, whom it deemed victims of human trafficking.

"They speak here in this courtroom today as lawful residents," she said.

Villhina "Virginia" Navarrete, the 42-year-old mother of the men, was sentenced to time served. She has been in Lee County jail since her November arrest.

Ismael "Michael" Navarrete, 23, the apparent half-brother of Cesar and Geovanni, received a 46 month sentence and a recommendation that he be placed in a jail close to his Immokalee home.

The defendants, brought in individually, wore orange prison jumpsuits and long sleeves underneath. Geovanni Navarrete slouched when he stood before the judge.

Joseph Viacava, Cesar Navarrete's attorney, called the sentence fair, but he scoffed the federal government's eagerness to prosecute his client, whom said described as an under-educated tomato picker filling a role created by large agriculture corporations and the American consumers they serve.

"No one wants to admit this is going on," he said.

"The bottom line is America wants cheap tomatoes."

This is just what we need more of: uneducated tomato pickers that occasionally like to take their frustration out on other uneducated tomato pickers. This means that courts have to waste their time prosecuting human garbage, and if the jury decides "wrong" the community needs to clean up after the riots at taxpayers expense.