Javier Sanchez Mendoza Jr., 24, allegedly recruited a Mexican migrant laborer bound for farm work in Georgia, brought her to live with him in his mobile home in Jesup, and repeatedly raped her for more than a year after making her believe they’d somehow been married, according to the feds.
All the while, the woman worked at his home, collected pine straw, received wire funds from other worker recruits so Mendoza wouldn’t personally get the payments, and helped with payroll. While the woman was eventually able to flee after being threatened and intimidated, Mendoza tracked her down while she was babysitting children at another home, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia said in a press release last Thursday. Mendoza then allegedly kidnapped her at knifepoint.
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By the time officers were able to rescue the woman, they found a shrine to Santa Muerte, “Saint Death,” at Mendoza’s mobile home, which had been decorated with the woman’s hair and blood, the U.S. attorney’s office said. They believed it to be a prelude to her murder.
Now, Mendoza is among the three men heading to federal prison after pleading guilty to charges including forced labor and conspiracy as a part of Operation Blooming Onion, a massive federal investigation that uncovered what they’re describing as “a modern-day slavery” operation in which migrant workers were forced to pay illegal fees to enter the U.S. and then made to work for little to no pay. Some of the laborers were even forced to dig onions with their bare hands for pennies per bucket, according to an indictment in the case.
“These men engaged in facilitating modern-day slavery,” the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, Davis Estes, said in a statement last week. “Our law enforcement partners have exposed an underworld of human trafficking, and we will continue to identify and bring to justice those who would exploit others whose labors provide the fuel for their greed.”
Of the men, Mendoza faces the lengthiest sentence: 30 years in federal lock-up for conspiracy to engage in forced labor. He admitted that he recruited more than 500 Central Americans to access temporary work visas in the U.S. between August 2018 and November 2019 and made them pay illegal fees before forcing them to work for little to no pay on Georgia farms and at other businesses, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia.
Because Mendoza is from Mexico and was living in the U.S. illegally, he will be subject to deportation after completing his prison term.
Mendoza was additionally also arrested on state charges of false imprisonment, battery, aggravated assault, and terroristic threats and acts in November 2019, according to the Augusta Chronicle. Those charges are still pending. In December 2019, he also pleaded guilty to a separate charge of assaulting the woman and received a sentence of probation, the Chronicle reported.
Aurelio Medina, a 42-year-old who was also in the U.S. illegally, was similarly sentenced to 64 months in prison after pleading guilty to forced labor in connection to Operation Blooming Onion, the U.S. attorney’s office said last week.
Medina admitted that from April to October 2020, he charged workers illegal fees to obtain H-2A visas—a widely used program that allows migrant agricultural laborers to temporarily work in the U.S.—and withheld their identification documents. Illegal recruitment fees and document withholding are common methods of abusing migrant workers.
Court documents show Medina was sentenced on March 30, and that he reached a plea agreement before the case became public last year in exchange for cooperation with the government.
Yordon Velazquez Victoria, a 45-year-old from Brunswick, Georgia, will similarly serve 15 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy as a part of the criminal enterprise, the U.S. attorney’s office said. Victoria, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, allowed Medina to use his name to apply for H-2A workers and, for $600 a week, transported workers back and forth between housing and their jobs. He also took a plea deal last year in exchange for cooperation.
Operation Blooming Onion doesn’t end here, though. In all, 24 people were indicted for their alleged roles in the crime ring, which has brought scrutiny to the entire H-2A visa system.
“Mendoza, Medina and Victoria misused the H-2A program in order to enrich themselves at the expense of foreign workers and American employers,” Mathew Broadhurst, acting special agent-in-charge for the Atlanta region of the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General, said in a statement. “We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division to vigorously pursue those who commit fraud involving foreign labor programs.”
