Couple Accused of Enslaving 4 Latinos

A couple suspected of enslaving and abusing four immigrant domestic laborers have been arrested and charged with conspiracy to violate federal peonage and slavery laws, the FBI said Monday.

Acting on information provided by one maid’s relatives, FBI agents Saturday arrested Kenneth Kimes, 66, and and his wife, Santee, 41, at their home in La Jolla, near San Diego, FBI spokesman Gary Laturno said. According to the FBI, the Kimes couple own several motels in Anaheim and maintained residences in Anaheim, La Jolla, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Washington and Cancun, Mexico.

A criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas on Friday by Adela Sanchez Guzman alleged that the Kimeses had beaten her several times while she worked for them in Las Vegas and Honolulu, and that she had not been paid and was not allowed to write to or telephone anyone. She was forced to travel with the couple in their recreational vehicle, the complaint said.

The arrest warrant alleges that the Kimeses held at least three other Central American maids against their will, “but we’re sure there are more, we just need them to come forward and furnish their identities,” said Las Vegas FBI spokesman Bill Jansen.

One of the women, Amalia Osorio, was freed when the FBI searched the couple’s Las Vegas residence on July 12, an FBI press release from Washington said.

Another of the maids, Maria de Rosario Vasquez, had been missing from her relatives’ Santa Ana home since June 4, when the Kimeses went there to hire her after she responded to an employment agency’s want ad, Jansen said.

Rosario was able to call her relatives last week; she told them that she had been beaten, was forced to work long hours, was not being paid and was not permitted to call anyone, according to the FBI. Her relatives took her phone number and passed it on to law enforcement officials, which led to Saturday’s arrest, Laturno said.

The woman was found at the Kimeses’ home and has been reunited with her family, Laturno said.

A fourth maid, Maribel Ramirez-Cruz, alleged that she had been burned with an iron and had been threatened with return to her native El Salvador, the FBI said.

The Kimeses appeared in San Diego Monday before U.S. Magistrate Roger McKee, who ordered them removed to Las Vegas to face the conspiracy charges. They are being held without bail in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego, Laturno said.

“The couple trade as Kimes Motels Inc. and Mecca Motels Inc. in Anaheim,” an FBI press release announcing the arrest said.

The manager of the Mecca Motel on South Harbor Boulevard in Anaheim expressed disbelief when told of the arrests.

“Oh, no, he doesn’t do things like that,” said Marvin Parker, who has managed the 100-unit building for about six months. “He was an upstanding, fine gentleman in all his business dealings. This is all a mystery to me.”

Parker said that all the domestic employees at the motel are paid “slightly above minimum wage, straight across the board. There’s no monkey business here.”

Under federal peonage and slavery statutes, the couple could face 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.