FORT MYERS NEWS-PRESS

December 9, 2005

Labor contractor back
Despite conviction for abusing workers, license legally granted

By Jeff Cull & Amy Williams

There are 510 farm labor contractors in the U.S. who are barred from supplying labor to pick vegetables and fruit because they violated laws that protect farm workers.

Abel Cuello Jr., however, is not one of them.

The Immokalee labor contractor who prosecutors called "brutal" for beating migrant workers and extorting money from them to pay off smuggling debts, spent 33 months in prison for enslaving migrant farm workers in 1999.

But today he's back in business, furnishing labor to farmers in Florida and New Jersey.

And it's perfectly legal.

He can't own a gun or vote, but the law says he can work as a labor contractor five years after his conviction.

"It may be legal, but it ain't right," said Doug Molloy, chief assistant U.S. Attorney in Fort Myers, who prosecuted Cuello and his brother Basilio Cuello in 1999.

Though no one is accusing Abel Cuello of restarting his former smuggling and enslavement operation, migrant worker advocacy groups and former victims say they're outraged that he can still operate and that companies will hire him.

"Regardless of the loophole allowing him to get a license, what kind of company hires someone with a criminal record — particularly a criminal record of egregious labor abuse — to oversee their employees?" said Laura Germino, who coordinates the Coalition of Immokalee Workers' anti-slavery campaign.

Nola Theiss, co-chair of the Coalition Against Human Trafficking in Southwest Florida, called Cuello a "human predator" and suggested stronger laws similar to sex offender registration for people convicted of slavery.

"Potential victims need to be kept informed of what he's up to. They're completely vulnerable," she said. "It's like letting an alcoholic be a bartender,"

And records obtained by The News-Press show Florida licensing officials were reluctant, though legally bound, to issue Cuello a new contractors license last year.

State officials worried

E-mails reviewed by The News-Press between workers in the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation — the agency that issues farm labor contractor licenses — show that officials there didn't want to give Cuello a new license.

"... I still am having great difficulty with authorizing the issuance of a license that bears my signature to this individual," wrote Rebecca Gregory, an official at the state's farm labor program, in 2004 when Cuello applied for a new farm labor contractors license.

Florida officials finally relented when the U.S. Department of Labor said they couldn't deny him. ".... we cannot legally prevent (Cuello) from registering as an FLC. He was convicted of involuntary servitude in October 1999. The five years from date of conviction has lapsed," wrote a Department of Labor official.

Farm labor contractors must be licensed by the state and feds. They recruit pickers, transport them to farms, supervise their work and often directly pay them.

Studies show that farm workers' median salary is about $7,500 per year.

The contractor's pay is usually based on the amount of work done by the laborers, called piece-work.

No wasted time

Just days after the five-year post-conviction wait lapsed, Cuello applied for and got new state and federal licenses.

He's worked in Immokalee and New Jersey for Ag-Mart — a company in the news recently for being fined nearly $300,000 by Florida and North Carolina for misusing pesticides.

He's no longer allowed on its property, Ag-Mart officials said.

Instead, the company, with farms in Florida, New Jersey and North Carolina, hired his wife, Yolanda, to find laborers for its Immokalee and New Jersey farms.

Yolanda Cuello also holds a contractor's license and is the sole owner of E&B Harvesting & Trucking Inc., a company Abel started in 2002, just months after he got out of prison.

"It's her discretion who she hires," said Ag-Mart spokesman David Sheon. "But he's not allowed on company property."

Yet, Cuello's workers have said they've never seen Yolanda in the fields and that he's the boss, said Gregory Schell, managing attorney for the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project in Lake Worth. Schell said he interviewed dozens of workers in Immokalee in the spring.

Schell said it's not uncommon for someone else to hold the license for a banned contractor. However, in this case Cuello is not banned. But he is infamous.

The News-Press compared data from a federal list of barred labor contractors with the state's list of licensees and found at least three other cases in Immokalee where relatives of barred contractors also held licenses.

Convicted

Cuello ran afoul of the law in April 1999 when federal agents freed 27 people from two ramshackle trailers he owned in Immokalee. Twenty-one adults and six teenagers had been smuggled into the U.S. and Cuello forced them to work to repay smuggling fees, according to a complaint filed in federal court in May 1999.

He was sentenced on Sept. 29, 1999, to 33 months in federal prison.

Just after his sentence was up, he formed a corporation with his wife.

Records show that on Sept. 23, 2002, E&B Harvesting & Trucking, Inc. was registered with the state. Cuello was the sole owner of the firm headquartered at 121 Redbird Lane, Naples.

Six months later, Yolanda Cuello was installed as president and registered agent of the firm now registered at 2181 Redbird Lane, Naples. The News-Press has been unable to find Redbird Lane in Naples using various means such as postal information and the Collier County property appraiser. However, records show Cuello owns property at 2181 Red Deer Road in Immokalee.

In October, Abel Cuello was removed as the company's treasurer.

The News-Press was unable to contact Abel and Yolanda Cuello at any of eight telephone numbers gleaned from public records or at the Red Deer Road address.

On a recent afternoon, Cuello's brother, Basilio, was mowing the lawn in front of a blue Sanctuary Road mobile home. He told reporters for The News-Press his brother was finishing up some work in New Jersey, but immediately after that, said "I don't want to say anything more on the record. We just want to put that all behind us."

Changing the law

U.S. Rep. Connie Mack said Congress is set to tackle a major reform of U.S. immigration policy next year and that will be the time to look at these issues.

"Human trafficking can't be tolerated," said Jeff Cohen, spokesman for the Fort Myers Republican.

On the state level, Sen. Dave Aronberg, a Democrat from Greenacres whose district includes parts of Lehigh Acres and Fort Myers, said there are a number of possible solutions.

"But they'd really need study," he said.