Modern-day slavery' in a quiet neighborhood

Neighbors in Fairview Township were stunned to hear that a case of human trafficking occurred in their development.

By TED CZECH
Daily Record/Sunday News
Updated: 11/02/2009 10:30:57 AM EST

Dawn Thompson first heard the words "modern-day slavery" when she attended a gathering of neighborhood women earlier this year in her Fairview Township development.

Thompson, 28, and her family had moved there in March, and she went to the meeting a month or two after that, she said.

"Talk was going around" at the ladies' night get-together, she said.

In 2008, federal agents charged three people associated with two York County nail salons with forcing two women to work for them for free. On Oct. 13, Lynda Dieu Phan, 39; her brother Justin Phan, 36; and her boyfriend, Duc Cao Nguyen, 41, pleaded guilty to federal charges.

The two women who were forced to work at the nail salons were kept at a house, where they were given beds without mattresses and made to cook and clean, court documents state. Authorities seized the house from Phan and Nguyen.

As it turned out, the house, in the 500 block of Sandpiper Lane, was directly across the street from Thompson's home.

"Wow -- how close to home," Thompson said. "You move into a neighborhood that's really nice and you find that out -- and it's right across the street."

Lynda and Justin Phan and Nguyen are expected to be sentenced before the end of the year, said Heidi Havens, spokeswoman for Dennis Pfannenschmidt, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. The three face maximum sentences of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a maximum of three years supervised release.

Julie Janovsky, spokeswoman for the Polaris Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that combats human trafficking worldwide, said two of the challenges facing groups like hers are people being unaware that the crime exists, and people not knowing it can happen anywhere.

"It's an area (where) we don't see a lot of cases, but that's because not a lot of people know about the crime," she said of York County.

"Most people are really shocked," to hear human trafficking takes place in the United States, she said. "They always think it's in another country."

Thompson's neighbors had similar feelings when asked recently about the human trafficking case.

Donna Zack of Windy Way said she wasn't aware that anything was going on in the house until she read it in a newspaper.

"I was shocked that anything like that would be going on anywhere in this day and age," she said.

Zack said she remembered seeing people who lived in the house, but didn't really interact with them.

"There were people coming and going all the time there," she said. "They kept to themselves."

Talitha Corbin, 31, also of Windy Way, said she and her family had moved in about a month ago and had no idea what had happened in her neighborhood.

"That's very interesting to know what's going on . . . I'm very surprised," she said. "It's kind of like 'Desperate Housewives' -- you never know what's going on in your neighborhood."

Using another TV parallel, Brian Norris, 39, also of Windy Way, said he and his wife had been watching an episode of the NBC show "Trauma," about emergency medical workers, in which several foreign nationals were found in a restaurant during a fire.

"That kind of stuff happens in big cities," he recalled saying to his wife, adding that she was "going to freak out" when he told her that a similar situation had occurred in their neighborhood.

tczech@ydr.com; 771-2033.

RED FLAGS

According to the Polaris project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that fights human trafficking worldwide, here are some possible red flags of human trafficking:

Is the individual:

# Not free to leave or come and go as he/she wishes.

# In the commercial sex industry and has a pimp/manager.

# Unpaid, paid very little, or paid only through tips.

# Works excessively long and/or unusual hours.

# Owes a large debt and is unable to pay it off.

# Is in poor mental or physical health.

# Is fearful, anxious, depressed, submissive, tense, or nervous/paranoid behavior

# Is not in control of his/her own money, no financial records, bank account, or identification documents.

If you see any of these red flags, call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline at 1-888-3737-888 to report the situation.

http://www.yorkblog.com/yorktownsquare/2008/03/post-167.html

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