FLORIDA, USA — A Florida woman has pleaded guilty to a federal racketeering conspiracy for subjecting Mexican workers to thousands of hours of forced labor through coercive tactics for financial gain, according to the Department of Justice.
A release from the DOJ explains that 43-year-old Christina Gamez worked as a bookkeeper, manager and supervisor for Los Villatoros Harvesting (LVH), a labor contracting company employing Mexican H-2A temporary visa recipients harvesting fruits and vegetables in several states, including Florida.
In this role, she conspired with the company's owner from March 2016 through August 2017 to commit several racketeering offenses, including subjecting workers to forced labor, harboring people after their temporary H-2A visas had expired for financial gain and committing visa fraud, according to the release.
The DOJ says Gamez and her co-conspirators used tactics like confiscating workers' passports, forcing them into "crowded, unsanitary and degrading" living conditions, and isolating workers from interacting with people outside of the company and subjecting workers to debt manipulation.
Through this, the DOJ says, they obtained "thousands of hours of physically demanding agricultural labor" all for "de minimis pay."
She also admitted, according to the plea agreement, that she knowingly sent falsified records to federal investigators to cover up the criminal enterprise.
Gamez faces a maximum of 20 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000. As part of her plea agreement, she has also agreed to pay more than $9,000 in restitution to the workers.
A date for Gamez's sentencing hearing has not yet been set.
