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Brothers receive 12-year prison terms in Immokalee human slavery case
BONITA SPRINGS
— Mariano Lucas Domingo discussed being locked in a tomato box truck for
15 hours one day by his employer, Cesar Navarrete. The Immokalee
farmworker had to find his way out, he said, and then help others. “I
want people to see there’s no one you can trust, and that’s all I wanted
to say,” Domingo said Friday in federal court in Fort Myers.
Described as the “young patriarch” of the family, Cesar Navarrete
received a 12-year sentence in federal prison for enslaving undocumented
farmworkers from Mexico and Guatemala. His brother, Geovanni Navarrete,
who was described as the “enforcer” of the operation, also received a
12-year prison sentence.
Their mother was released on time served, and another family member
received a 46-month sentence.
In August, a federal grand jury issued a 16-count indictment that
described an alcohol- and drug-fueled debtor system on the Navarrete’s
Immokalee farm, in which 15 employees were denied pay but told they
couldn’t leave until they paid off all their debts for beer and drugs.
When the workers threatened to leave, they were severely beat and in
some cases restrained or locked in a truck, the indictment alleged.
Friday the four separate hearings, conducted by Judge John E. Steele at
the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, in Fort
Myers, concluded a 13-month legal process in which six members of the
Navarrete family pleaded guilty to charges. All are required to pay
nearly $240,000 in restitution to the victims.
“This case shows that human slavery is a not a thing of the past, but an
ugly crime that still continues to afflict our communities,” A. Brian
Albritton, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida, was quoted
as saying in a Department of Justice press release.
The most serious charges — deprivation of civil rights — were leveled at
Cesar, 27, and Geovanni Navarrete, 21. They pleaded guilty to those
counts, as well as charges for felony re-entry into the country, Social
Security fraud and harboring undocumented foreign nationals for private
gain.
All six defendants in the case pleaded guilty to the latter charge.
Cesar and Geovanni Navarrete received 12-year sentences in federal
prison. They were also sentenced to three years supervised release after
they leave prison, although both will be turned over to immigration
officials when they finish their incarceration.
An apparent half brother of the two men, Ismael “Michael” Navarrete, 23,
was sentenced to 46 months.
During each man’s sentencing, workers who suffered abuse spoke to the
court.
“Bosses do not beat their people up who are working with them,” Domingo
said.
During Ismael Navarrete’s hearing, another worker, Joel Perez Luna,
lifted a white button-up shirt and showed a horizontal inches-long scar
above his belly, as well as one on his right side. When Steele asked
that Luna show the scars to Navarrete, the worker turned to face him.
Cesar Navarette apologized before Steele.
“I know I committed a mistake,” he said.
During his hearing, Geovanni Navarrete asked Steele why the court
allowed undocumented workers to speak. The judge noted that Navarrete
had once been deported but re-entered the country illegally.
Susan French, a trial attorney with the Department of Justice’s Human
Trafficking Unit and the prosecutor, said both workers were now in the
country legally, as victims of human trafficking.
“They speak here in this courtroom today as lawful residents,” she said.
The two workers sat in the back of the courtroom for each hearing,
flanked by a pair of lawyers. They weren’t allowed to speak to
reporters.
Cesar and Geovanni Navarrete’s mother, Villhina “Virginia” Navarrete,
was sentenced to time served, after spending more than a year in Lee
County jail. An immigration case that will almost certainly end in her
deportation will begin immediately.
None of the sentences appeared to be a surprise. Only Geovanni
Navarrete’s sentence exceeded state guidelines, and that was due to the
plea agreement, which suggested a 12-year sentence. When the state
guidelines formula was calculated, the maximum sentence was 135 months,
a difference of nine months.
A few family members of the defendants came to the hearings.
Maria Navarrete, sister-in-law of Villhina Navarrete, said the workers
had lied to prosecutors.
“The law should be complete, but not bad, like the way they make it,”
she said through an interpreter.
With her daughter, Maria Navarrete wept during her sister-in-law’s
sentencing. Villhina Navarrete had turned around to address the
complaining workers at the back of the courtroom, throwing a litany of
complaints and accusations that, even after translation, were confusing.
After being sentenced to time served, she looked relieved, and she waved
to her sister-in-law.
Joseph Viacava, Cesar Navarrete’s attorney, called the sentence fair
when asked about it outside the courtroom, but he criticized the federal
government’s prosecution of his client. He described Cesar Navarrete as
an uneducated tomato-picker who merely filled a role created by large
agricultural corporations and American consumers.
“The bottom line is America wants cheap tomatoes,” he said.
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