AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Three men have been sentenced to federal prisons as part of a full investigation into what authorities say was a wide-ranging conspiracy to bring workers from Central America to the United States for forced labor on farms in South Georgia.
The three men were charged on separate but related counts in connection with a federal investigation called Blooming Onion, prosecutors said in a news release. Authorities say the farm workers were brought to the United States under the H-2A farm visa program, and then the men profited from their labor by underpaying them and forcing them to live in substandard conditions.
“These men are committed to facilitating modern slavery,” US Attorney David Estes said in a press release. “Our law enforcement partners have uncovered an underworld of human trafficking, and we will continue to identify and bring to justice those who would exploit others whose work fuels their greed.”
Javier Sanchez Mendoza Jr., 24, of Jesup, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit forced labor and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Aurelio Medina, 42, of Braunschweig, pleaded guilty to forced labor and was sentenced to five years and four months. Yordon Velazquez Victoria, 45, of Braunschweig, received a 15-month sentence after pleading guilty to conspiracy.
Mendoza and Medina are Mexican citizens illegally residing in the US and face deportation once they serve their sentences, prosecutors said.
Mendoza admitted he was a leader in a program to provide labor and services to farms and other businesses in Glynn, Ware and Pierce counties from August 2018 to November 2019, the release said. He recruited more than 500 people from Central America and illegally required them to have H-2A visas, withheld their identification papers and forced them to work in appalling conditions for little or no pay, threatening them and their families at home, they said prosecutors.
One victim testified during the sentencing hearing that Mendoza singled her out of a work crew and brought her to him after arriving from Mexico, leading her to mistakenly believe that she had married him. He controlled her with threats and intimidation and repeatedly raped her for more than a year, prosecutors said.
After she fled, Mendoza kidnapped her with a knife point from the front yard of a home where she was babysitting, prosecutors said. Police officers who found and rescued her at Mendoza’s mobile home in Jesup found a shrine to Santa Muerte, the “Holy Death,” adorned with her hair and blood, the press release said. Mendoza is facing charges of grievous bodily harm in this connection.
Medina admitted he billed foreign workers for H-2A visas from April to October 2020 and then withheld their identification documents in Glynn and Effingham counties. Victoria, a naturalized U.S. citizen, admitted he allowed Medina to use his name to apply to hire H-2A workers and was paid $600 a week to take the workers from their shelters to work bring to.
Prosecutors said investigations into forced labor in South Georgia and elsewhere continue with a federal case charging 23 people with alleged conspiracy to engage in labor trafficking, visa fraud and money laundering.
