Wash. couple sentenced in forced labor case

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Wash. couple sentenced in forced labor case
The Associated Press | 08/22/11 11:35 PM

.A Bellingham, Wash., couple have been sentenced for illegally bringing an impoverished woman from the Philippines to be their live-in servant, forcing her to work seven days a week for as little as $200 a month.

U.S. District Judge James Robart sentenced 44-year-old Cherry Valera on Monday in Seattle to four months in prison and 100 hours of community service. He sentenced her husband, 46-year-old Bernard Salvatierra, to six months of home detention.

Valera earlier pleaded guilty to harboring an alien for financial gain and Salvatierra to unlawful employment of an alien.

The U.S. attorney's office says the couple employed the woman for three years until she escaped. They forced her to provide full-time child care, cleaning and cooking services.

Read more: http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/2011/08/wash-couple-sentenced-forced-labor-case

[DCKit]

1. Three years of slavery, and one gets four months, the other, house arrest.

Yeah, that's justice.

[provis99]

2. how ironic. Latinos exploiting poor immigrants...

[Blue_Tires]

8. according to the story, they are all from the Philippines

from what I understand of that country, inhumane treatment of domestics by the wealthy isn't a rare thing...

[Judi Lynn]

3. More, from the Associated Press:

Wash. couple sentenced in forced labor case
By: The Associated Press | The Associated Press | 08/22/11 11:35 PM

~snip~
Court documents gave the following details about the case:

- Through her sister in the Philippines, Valera recruited G.P., an impoverished woman and single mother who didn’t speak English, to work as her family’s live-in domestic servant. Valera’s sister, Marie Bernadette Alcontin, arranged for G.P.’s travel to the U.S., and fraudulently indicated that she was traveling to the U.S. as Alcontin’s maid.

- Once G.P. was in Bellingham, the couple took G.P.’s passport and travel documents.

- During her employment, G.P. provided full-time childcare for two children, cooked, cleaned and did other chores. She did so from August 2006 until September 2009, when she escaped the household.

- The couple verbally abused her and threatened her. They paid her $200 to $240 a month. She worked 18 hours a day, seven days a week. G.P. sent what she could of her earnings back to her family in the Philippines.

More:
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/08/22/2151809/bellingham-couple-sentenced-for.html

[KILL THE WISE ONE]

4. should have been at least day for day in jail (3 years)

[Judi Lynn]

5. Absolutely fair sentence, by all means! They have earned it day by day. They stole her life. n/t

[Quantess]

6. A similar story in MD

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/capital-land/2011/06/md-couple-charged-forced-labor-scheme

[freeplessinseattle]

7. well, Bellingham justice isn't the greatest

went to high school and college there, volunteered at a domestic violence shelter for a couple years. Just had to hope you got one of the good judges.

I'm so glad she had the courage to leave, and it is so lucky that there was a cashier who spoke her language at the store this poor woman came upon after more than an hour of walking. What a life!

from the charging documents:

"G.P. worked as the Defendant’s maid and nanny to her two children: one school
age and one infant, and also cooked separate meals for the Defendant’s elderly mother.
G.P. shared a bedroom with the mother, although the mother had a bed while G.P. slept
on the floor.

G.P.’s relationship with the Defendant’s mother became strained because
the mother falsely accused G.P. of stealing from her. According to G.P., the Defendant
addressed these allegations by placing a padlock on the bedroom door and permitting
G.P. to enter the bedroom only with an escort.

Defendant’s mother advised that two immigration officers had come to the house looking
for her. Shortly thereafter, the Defendant’s husband, co-defendant Bernard Salvatierra,
removed G.P. from Bellingham to Seattle and hid her at the home of Adelina Vallejo, a
relative’s of Salvatierra. G.P. remained in this home for two weeks. She was treated as a
visitor in this home and taken shopping and sightseeing.


It was markedly different than the manner in which she had been treated by the Defendant and Salvatierra. Adelina Vallejo, subsequently advised law enforcement that Bernard dropped off G.P. at her home, unannounced, in mid-2009, and that G.P. was a guest in her home for two weeks.
She described G.P. as very quiet and very sad, and that it appeared this was G.P.’s first
outing since arrival in the United States. Ms. Vallejo was never told, by her cousin, why
G.P. was at her home.

Within a few months of this concealment in Seattle, G.P. had the courage to leave the
Valera/Salvatierra home to seek help."