CLEVELAND, Ohio — Four farm contractors have been charged in a 15-count federal indictment for operating a slave-labor ring using young immigrant teenagers who were forced to clean chicken coops that housed 10 million chickens on nine central Ohio egg farms.
Eight teenagers ranging in age from 14-15 and two adults were smuggled from Guatemala, and lured by the smugglers with promises of good jobs and a free education in the United States. Instead they were forced to live in squalid conditions, work 12-hour days, seven days per week and robbed of their earnings.
Prosecutors announced the indictments on July 2, charging Aroldo Castillo-Serrano, 33, of Pecos, Texas, Ana Angelica Pedro Juan, 21, of Columbus, Conrado Salgado Soto, 52, of Richmond, of running the labor trafficking conspiracy.
Castillo-Serrano is also charged with 10-counts of forced labor; Salgado Soto and Pedro Juan were each charged with eight of those 10 counts also including charges of harboring illegal aliens. A fourth suspect, 23-year-old Pablo Duran, Jr., of Marysville, was also charged with the immigration violations.
Castillo-Serrao and Pedro Juan were additionally charged with witness tamper-ing for intimating the teenagers, and Pedro Juan, for lying to FBI agents.
All of the suspects face up to 20 years in prison or more if convicted on the felony charges.
Besides cleaning out the chicken coops, FBI agents uncovered workers forced to work while they were ill or injured, and performed vigorous tasks as loading and unloading heavy crates of chickens, and de-beaking and vaccinating chickens.
The smuggled workers were forced to live in dilapidated trailers in the poorly managed Oakridge Estates mobile home park in Marion, according to the description in the indictment. The house trailers often did not have heat in the winter.
In one instance, a teen worker was forced to turn over his wages to the suspects, the indictment charged, and if he refused, was threatened with bodily harm.
The victim was also told that if he didn’t turnover his wages, "his mother would lose her hand," according to the indictment. "Human beings are not commodities like farm products," declared U.S. Attorney Steven M. Dettlebach of the Northern District of Ohio, who led the investigation. "This indictment charges the defendant with putting profits ahead of common decency."
The ringleaders ran the slave labor operation through a subcontracting company they established to provide labor services to Trillium Farms, one of Ohio’s largest egg-producing farms.
The farm has operations in Licking County including nine sites near Johnstown and Hartford.
These operations house up to 10 million chickens producing 5 million eggs each day.
Federal officials said the company will not be charged and has cooperated during the investigation. In a company statement, the company denied knowing about the illegal labor practices.
Trillium Farms director of human resources, Chuck Renken, said the company immediately fired the group when contacted by the FBI, he said in a statement released to the public.
"Caring for our employees, doing the right thing and abiding by employment laws is our obligation and our responsibility, and we expect the same standards to be held by companies we employ for contracted services," the company statement said.
"When federal officials made us aware of a possible employment issued with one of our contractors, we immediately cooperated and assisted in the investigation. That work led to the swift identification and same day rescue of the employees believed to be working against their will," the statement added.
The company announced that as a result of the investigation, the farm operation has changed its hiring practices and has increased training and supervision of its contracted laborers.
The ring targeted its victims in Guatemala, the home countries for Castillo-Serrano and Pedro Juan, and then smuggled them into the United States.
The Cleveland U.S. Attorney’s office public affairs spokesman Mike Tobin, did not respond to emails or telephone messages seeking information on the status of the four suspects and the date of their first court appearance.
Information was also requested on the status and whereabouts of the eight teenagers and two adults rescued by the FBI.
