HONOLULU (AP) — A federal judge in Hawaii on Friday dismissed human trafficking charges against executives and business associates of a labor recruiting company accused of exploiting hundreds of farmer workers from Thailand by putting them into debt, confiscating their passports and threatening to deport them.
Authorities accused Los Angeles-based Global Horizons Manpower Inc. of manipulating 600 Thai workers placed in farms across the United States. It was the U.S. government’s largest-ever human trafficking case.
But prosecutors requested to dismiss the case against CEO Mordechai Orian and Director of International Relations Pranee Tubchumpol and other business associates. Eight defendants were originally indicted and three later pleaded guilty.
Orian’s trial was set to take place in Honolulu next month.
The case was in jeopardy after federal prosecutors abruptly dropped similar accusations against owners of Hawaii’s Aloun Farms last year. That case prompted an investigation that found the federal government wouldn’t be able to prove the charges in the Global Horizons case, according to the dismissal order.
“Based on this further investigation, the government has determined that dismissal of this matter is in the interest of justice, because the government is unable to prove the elements of the charged offenses beyond a reasonable doubt,” the order said.
Michael Green, Global Horizons’ attorney in Honolulu, called the dismissal a “moral victory” but said it doesn’t take away all the time, money and emotional toll of fighting the charges.
“To dismiss a case with no intention of bringing it back as a new indictment is very unusual,” Green said. “You never see the government just walk away from a case that they spent millions of dollars on.”
After accusations were dropped against Aloun Farms owners Alec and Michael Sou in August, the fate of the Global Horizons case became unclear. Both Global Horizons and Aloun Farms were accused of using the same tactics to keep foreign workers in their service.
Global Horizons supplied 33 workers to Aloun Farms for six weeks in 2003, during a period before mistreatment was alleged at Aloun.
The case against the Sou brothers fell apart when lead prosecutor Susan French conceded she inaccurately stated to a grand jury that workers couldn’t be charged recruiting fees when the laborers traveled to Hawaii in 2004. The law was changed in late 2008 to prohibit recruiting fees.
French stepped down from the prosecution team shortly afterward because of unspecified health problems.
The same team that gave up its trial of the Sou brothers after only three days of testimony was expected to handle Orian’s trial.
