CASPER, Wyo. — Two ringleaders of a Missouri-based alleged human-trafficking scheme are now on trial in Kansas City for hiring immigrant workers, sending them to Wyoming and 13 other states and holding them in virtual slavery.
Of the more than 200 witnesses the government may call to testify, 10 are managers from central Wyoming hotels, including the Ramada Plaza Riverside in Casper and the Holiday Inn Express and Sleep Inn in Douglas, where 18 immigrants were employed, according to documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
Evidentiary hearings were held Monday and Tuesday, and jury selection and opening statements will begin today in the trial of Abrorkhodja Askarkhodjaev, a Uzbekistan national, and Missouri businessman Kristin Dougherty.
The trial may take three to six weeks.
Prosecutors charged Askarkhodjaev, Dougherty and 13 other individuals and companies with establishing temporary help agencies and hiring hundreds of mostly legal immigrants for work in hotels and casinos, according to the original 44-count indictment filed in May 2009 indictment and a superseding 143-count indictment filed in January.
Shortly after the first indictment, agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement transported nine of the workers from the Holiday Inn Express and Sleep Inn in Douglas and another nine from the Ramada Plaza Riverside Casper to the Kansas City area, where they were placed in temporary protective custody.
The Wyoming hotels themselves were not under investigation.
The companies — Giant Labor Solutions, Crystal Management and Five Star Cleaning — placed the workers in overcrowded apartments or hotel rooms, withheld their wages and taxes and did not pay for overtime, according to a May 27 news release from Acting U.S. Attorney Matt Whitworth of the Western District of Missouri.
“The defendants allegedly used false information to acquire fraudulent work visas for these foreign nationals. Many of their employees were allegedly victims of human trafficking who were coerced to work in violation of the terms of their visa without proper pay and under the threat of deportation. The defendants also required them to reside together in crowded, substandard and overpriced apartments,” Whitworth said.
Other charges include racketeering, forced labor trafficking, identity theft, harboring illegal aliens, marriage fraud, visa fraud, money laundering, mail and wire fraud, transporting illegal aliens, and evasion of corporate employment tax.
In the past year, the court dismissed the charges against the three companies, three defendants have outstanding arrest warrants, and seven defendants have entered guilty pleas.
In recent court documents, Askarkhodjaev objected to the forced labor charges because they were vague under the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment and therefore unconstitutional. He also disputed the allegations that he caused harm or “threatened abuse of the law” by telling the workers about their precarious immigration status, according to his attorney, Willie J. Epps Jr. of the Kansas City firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon.
Askarkhodjaev also objected to prosecutors comparing the charges against him to “modern day slavery” because of the term’s connection to American history; the evidence of the workers’ living conditions; and discussions of a “climate of fear” among the immigrants.
U.S. District Judge Sarah Hayes has ruled against nearly all of Askarkhodjaev’s objections.
Contact Tom Morton at tom.morton@trib.com or 307-266-0592.
Human-trafficking scheme sent immigrants to Wyoming hotelsSource: billingsgazette.com
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