Five Plead Guilty in Farmworker Slavery Case

September 2008

To read the offical Department of Justice Press Release click here.

In federal court on Tuesday, September 2, 2008, farm bosses from Immokalee pled guilty to "numerous charges of enslaving Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants, brutalizing them and forcing them to work in farm fields." ("Five to plead guilty on charges of enslaving immigrant laborers," Ft. Myers News Press, 9/2/08). According to the News-Press report:

"The 17-count indictment in the case - one of the largest slavery prosecutions Southwest Florida has ever seen - was originally released in January. It alleged that, for two years, Cesar Navarrete and Geovanni Navarrete held more than a dozen people in boxes, trucks and shacks on the family property, chaining and beating them, forcing them to work in farm fields in Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina while keeping them in ever-increasing debt.

Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Doug Molloy called it "slavery, plain and simple."

You may remember this case as the prosecution that began when workers escaped from the ventilation hatch of a locked box truck. They made their way to the Collier County Sheriff’s office on the same day that the Miami Herald reported on a delegation of representatives from the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange and an industry-friendly "third-party" monitoring group named Intertek who visited Immokalee to declare Florida's fields free of slavery.

The CIW issued the following statement about the convictions:

"The facts that have been reported in this case are beyond outrageous -- workers being beaten, tied to posts, and chained and locked into trucks to prevent them from leaving their boss. How many more workers have to be held against their will before the food industry steps up to the plate and demands that this never -- ever -- occur again in the produce that ends up on America's tables?"

"What's most frustrating is that there is a solution. As US Senator Bernie Sanders said when he visited Immokale, 'Slavery is the extreme. The norm is a disaster.' If we can improve the norm -- guarantee fair wages and humane conditions for all Florida farmworkers-- then we can eliminate the extreme. And there are now several retail food industry leaders who have agreed to do their part to promote social responsibility in Florida agriculture. Yet the leaders of Florida's tomato industry -- who are holding their annual meeting this week at the Ritz Carlton in Naples -- continue to stand in the way of progress. The FTGE needs to start working with Yum Brands, McDonald's, Burger King, and the other major tomato buyers who want to put an end to exploitation in Florida's fields."

Click here to read a strong statement by Senator Sanders on the case.