California couple sentenced to prison for using ‘coercive means’ in forced labor case
A federal judge on Monday sentenced the owners of a restaurant and janitorial company in Shasta Lake who used “coercive means” to lure seven people, including children, into serving as forced laborers for their businesses, prosecutors said.
Nery A. Martinez Vasquez and his wife, Maura N. Martinez, both 54, were sentenced after pleading guilty in August to a single count of conspiracy to commit forced labor, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento.
The judge sentenced the husband to six and a half years in prison and his wife to three years in prison. Each of them also were sentenced to three years of parole and a fine of $25,000. The judge also ordered the couple to pay $300,000 in restitution to the seven victims.
The case stemmed from incidents that occurred from September 2016 through February 2018. Court documents show the defendants operated the restaurant Latino’s and Redding Carpet Cleaning & Janitorial Services, which provided services to car dealerships and other firms in the Shasta Lake area.
The couple forced the victims “into working long hours of physically demanding work, seven days a week, for minimal to no pay,” according to the news release.
Prosecutors said the defendants enticed a relative in Guatemala to bring her two daughters, ages 15 and 8, to the United States in 2016 with promises of providing them a better life and educational opportunities.
The couple then imposed an inflated debt that required the victims to pay it back through their work through February 2018, threatening them with arrest if they went outside unaccompanied or if the children tried to attend school, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors said the defendants housed the victims in a dilapidated and unheated trailer with no running water, “degraded and humiliated” them in front of others, and Martinez Vasquez would beat the children with a stick that had the children’s name and nickname written on it along with the phrase “what goes up, must come down.”
This story was originally published May 2, 2022 at 4:59 PM.
