A total of six defendants, themselves undocumented immigrants, pleaded guilty in connection with the scheme. All defendants pleaded guilty to harboring undocumented immigrants for private financial gain and related felonies.
Defendants Cesar Navarrete and Geovanni Navarrete also pleaded guilty to beating, threatening, restraining, and locking workers in trucks to force them to work as agricultural laborers, in addition to other related crimes.
Brothers Cesar and Geovanni Navarrete were each sentenced to 12 years in prison and held jointly and severally liable, along with other co-defendants, for $239,882 in restitution payable to the victims.
Defendant Ismael Michael Navarrete was sentenced to 46 months in prison, and Defendant Villhina Navarrete was sentenced to time served. All defendants will be removed from the United States following the completion of their sentences.
According to documents filed in court, the defendants were accused of paying the workers minimal wages and driving them into debt, while simultaneously threatening physical harm if the workers left their employment before their debts had been repaid to the Navarrete family.
"These defendants used physical coercion and abuse to force the victims to work for their own financial benefit," said Grace Chung Becker, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division.
"This case shows that human slavery is not a thing of the past, but an ugly crime that still continues to afflict our communities," said A. Brian Albritton, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida. "We encourage those who learn of such mistreatment to report it to local, state or federal authorities."
Most of the defendants were arrested in November 2007 and pleaded guilty in early September 2008.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a member of the Senate labor committee, commented on the case after the defendants entered their pleas in September.
“I think most Americans would find it hard to believe that people in our country are pleading guilty to slavery charges in the year 2008, but that is what is going on in the tomato fields of Florida. And, of course, this is not the first case. It is the sixth successful slavery prosecution which has resulted in the freeing of about 1,000 workers.
“While slavery is, of course, the most extreme situation in the tomato fields, the truth is that the average worker there is being ruthlessly exploited. Tomato pickers perform backbreaking work, make very low wages, have no benefits and virtually no labor protections,” said the Senator in an official statement.
The Justice Department says that the prosecution of human trafficking offenses is one of its top priorities. Since the enactment of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2000, human trafficking prosecutions brought by the Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorneys Offices have resulted in nearly five times more defendants charged, and nearly five times more convictions and guilty pleas as compared to the prior eight-year period.
In Fiscal Year 2008, the Department filed a record number of both labor trafficking and sex trafficking cases.
