'Modern-day slavery' case ramps up
نوشته شده توسط : cheapweddingdresses

A Flagstaff businesswoman continues to proclaim her innocence even as a federal grand jury added more criminal counts this week against her and her family in a case alleging the exploitation of illegal Vietnamese immigrants.

"All I did my whole life was try to help my family," said Kelly McReynolds, owner of the I do! I do! Wedding Boutique and Sweet Nothings Lingerie store.

She claimed that she gave the workers an education, with some of the workers attending Flagstaff high schools.

"I'm in here seven days a week, 365 days a year. I feel like the whole town is against me," she said.

But Matthew Allen of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Division sees it differently .

"In this case, they've been exploited for labor purposes," Allen said last year at the time of the initial indictments. "We refer to it as 'modern-day slavery.'"

Prosecutors strengthened their case against the McReynolds family this week when a grand jury tacked on three counts of forced labor and 12 counts of promotional money laundering. The new charges allege that additional people were used as slave labor, working for little or no pay under abusive conditions.

The Internal Revenue Service has also taken a role in the case, tracking payments made on a Phoenix-area property reportedly involved in the human trafficking. They also accuse the McReynolds family of paying tuition at a Phoenix school so that one of the victims would keep a student visa.

"Adding these charges strengthens the case, but more importantly it explains the whole case in terms of the circle of the money," said Internal Revenue Service Special Agent Brian Watson.

Eight of the new counts stem from mortgage payments made on a property in the Valley used "with intent to promote the carrying on of the specified unlawful activities."

The two-year investigation was dubbed Operation Broken Promises and resulted in the July 2011 arrests of Flagstaff residents Huong Thi "Kelly" McReynolds,We have the largest selection of Wigs Halloween and other occasions you'll find anywhere. 58; James Hartful McReynolds, 60; Joseph Minh McReynolds, 36; and Vincent Minh McReynolds, 32.

Kelly McReynolds owns the boutique and the lingerie store, which she was operating with her ex-husband, part-owner James McReynolds. Their son Vincent McReynolds also helped run the store.

Of the four, a grand jury has charged all but Vincent McReynolds with marrying to evade immigration laws.

The McReynolds family has been able to continue operating their Santa Fe Avenue business, which also an adult store, since shortly after their arrests. If they are convicted, they will forfeit all their homes, properties and business.Our Vintage Wedding Dresses are hand selected with the bride in mind. That includes the real estate, bank accounts and inventory of both I do! I do! and Sweet Nothings, as well as their University Heights home on South Litzler Drive.

They will also be forced to pay $455,000 to the victims for unpaid wages, an amount court documents cite as being calculated based on minimum wage and overtime pay guaranteed under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Kelly McReynolds, the main focus of the investigation, spent one night in jail in July 2011 -- as did the other defendants -- and was released the day after her business was raided by federal agents.

Her passport was confiscated and she has not been able to leave the state since her arrest, with the exception of a Las Vegas New Year's Eve celebration a judge gave her special permission to attend, according to release conditions. She is also not allowed to contact the victims in the case.

Kelly McReynolds denies all of the allegations and suggests that the government has been tricked by the victims, who she says are motivated by greed and jealousy.

Seven victims were identified by initials in the indictment, and the crimes were alleged to have happened between September 2001 and September 2008. In all, five adult Vietnamese females, two Vietnamese girls and two Vietnamese men were reportedly brought into the country illegally and forced to work as slaves.

The investigation was carried out by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement,Many fashion styles of evening dresses from china and gowns. the FBI, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Marshal's Service and the IRS.

"They came in my house and took me to jail," McReynolds said, sitting Friday on a broken marble lion outside I do! I do! that she said drunken Tequila Sunrise partiers had knocked over.

She claims that she paid her employees based on commission. If they sold a dress, they got a cut of the sales,Malibu Strings bikinis are the Sexy Swimwear on the planet. she said. According to McReynolds, at least some of the Vietnamese victims in the case still live in Flagstaff, working and studying to receive college degrees.

McReynolds says that the people immigration authorities have referred to as modern-day slaves are gaming the government, which she compared to communist Russia.

"Does that look like a slave to you?" she said. "Am I a slave or are they a slave?"

In a 2010 interview with the Daily Sun about her business, McReynolds said she was born in a coastal city in the former South Vietnam. She served milkshakes to U.S. servicemen in a USO club from 1968 to 1973.

McReynolds told the Daily Sun that she would wear a white smock with the name "Kelly" on it in red letters.

"It was someone else," she said. "I picked that name for myself. I used to write the name on my palm, because I couldn't pronounce it."

She married Vietnam veteran James McReynolds in Thailand in 1973 and the two moved to California. They would settle in Flagstaff 12 years later so they could raise their sons in a safe environment, she said. The couple bought the lingerie store in 1986.

Prosecutors say that by 2001, the family was using slave labor to run their business. And in 2004, they started traveling to Vietnam to arrange marriages to enlist more cheap labor.

Investigators say that one worker was paid a total of $105 over a two-year span, another given $800 over four years and a third wasn't paid at all for nearly a year.

One worker told investigators that she was paid one dollar for every five shoes she polished and a dollar for every three shirts she cleaned.

"It was the object of the conspiracy to recruit and obtain Vietnamese national and compel the unpaid servitude of those nationals in the store and the McReynolds residence," according to court documents.

The McReynolds family would allegedly lead Vietnamese people to think they were entering a legitimate marriage with U.S. citizens and then force them to work in their store and home. Others were led to believe they would come to America and receive an education.

Once the workers arrived in the country, they were reportedly stripped of their passports and immigration documents.

The indictment lists seven victims as being brought to the United States and forced to work in the wedding boutique seven days a week and as much as 11 hours a day. When workers returned to the McReynolds home, they would also be forced to do work around the house.

"The thrust of this case is that it's a human trafficking investigation as opposed to a human smuggling investigation," said Allen of ICE.

He said that while smuggling deals with transportation of illegal immigrants, trafficking deals with exploiting the labor of illegal immigrants.

The indictment also says that Kelly McReynolds filed false reports with the Flagstaff Police Department against the workers and tried to have one of the workers deported by ICE when a man escaped from their home.

They reportedly kept the workers from learning English and restricted where they could travel to keep them isolated from the Flagstaff community. They also monitored the workers' communications and stopped them from talking to family members.

The indictment also accuses Joseph and Vincent McReynolds of carrying guns around the home and threatening the workers as they told them what to do. Prosecutors also allege that the two men and Kelly McReynolds would berate the workers and physically assaulted one when the victim tried to escape and asked to go back to Vietnam.





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تاریخ انتشار : دو شنبه 8 آبان 1391 | نظرات ()
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