Couple ‘Amazed’ at Accusations in Slavery Case

A San Diego attorney representing a couple suspected of enslaving and abusing four immigrant domestic laborers, including one from Santa Ana, said Tuesday they maintain their innocence and are “amazed” at the allegations against them.

Kenneth K. Kimes, 67, and his wife, Santee, 41, remained at San Diego’s Metropolitan Correctional Center without bail, the FBI said. They will be transferred to Las Vegas where they face charges of conspiracy to violate federal peonage and slavery laws. Each could face 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine if convicted.

Bert Sheela Jr., who is representing Santee Kimes, said he had not seen the complaint against the couple.

“I’m kind of in limbo here,” he said. “But I know the Kimeses are very upset; they are amazed that anyone would do this to them. Both Mr. and Mrs. Kimes deny the charges.”

Kenneth Kimes is being represented by attorney Frank Cremen of Las Vegas, who said he never handled a slavery case before and knew only “the barest minimum about the case” against his client.

The FBI, acting on information provided by a former maid, arrested the couple last weekend at a town house in La Jolla, on San Diego’s north coast. The former maid, Adela Sanchez Guzman, alleged that the Kimeses had beaten her several times while she worked for them in Las Vegas and Honolulu. She also told FBI investigators that she had not been paid and was not allowed to write or telephone anyone.

Two other women also lodged the same accusations against the couple. One of them, Amalia Osorio, was freed when the FBI searched the Kimeses’ Las Vegas home on July 12, an FBI spokesman said.

The couple were arrested after Maria de Rosario Vasquez, who had been missing from her relatives’ Santa Ana home since June 4, placed a collect call to her unidentified sister from La Jolla. Vasquez told her sister that she had been beaten, was forced to work long hours, was not being paid and was not permitted to call anyone, the FBI said.

Vasquez also gave her sister the telephone number at the La Jolla town house where the Kimeses were staying. Investigators then traced the location of the town house and arrested the couple without incident last Saturday.

Reunited With Family

Vasquez, the FBI said, has been reunited with her family, but agents in Santa Ana and San Diego refused Tuesday to divulge her whereabouts in Orange County.

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According to the criminal complaint, Vasquez was hired by the Kimeses after she responded to a classified advertisement placed by a Santa Ana employment agency, Katrina Enterprises Inc.

An employee who answered the phone at Katrina but declined to identify herself confirmed that Vasquez had used the agency to seek employment. The employee refused to divulge any further information about Vasquez.

Kenneth Kimes, who the FBI said also had homes in Anaheim and Honolulu, owns the Mecca Motel in Anaheim. But the motel’s manager, Marvin Parker, said Kimes did not have a home in Anaheim. He said he only met Kimes once, about six months ago when he was hired to manage the 100-unit facility.

“He got his mail here at the motel. He stayed here at the motel a couple of weeks when he first hired me. I haven’t seen him since, but I talk to him all the time on the phone,” Parker said.

The Kimeses were renting the townhouse in La Jolla from a Mexican couple from Calexico. But apparently they had not been in La Jolla long before the arrest since most neighbors had hardly noticed them. One neighbor, Jim Hodder, 60, said: “I’ve never seen them nor heard of them.”