8 at Ranch Indicted on U.S. Charges of Slavery : Laborers: A federal grand jury says that a Somis flower grower forced more than 100 Mexicans to work for substandard wages.

A federal grand jury in Los Angeles on Tuesday charged a Somis flower rancher, six ranch foremen and an alleged smuggler with enslaving more than 100 Mexican laborers, forcing them to work for subminimum wages and selling them food and sundries at inflated prices from a company store.

Ranch owner Edwin M. Ives, 54, and five other defendants charged in the 15-count indictment face up to 52 years in prison and $2 million in fines, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

Federal prosecutors added two ranch foremen, Naju Lnu and Paringer Singh, to a criminal complaint filed last month.

All eight defendants are charged with violating a variety of labor and civil rights laws, including a federal criminal anti-slavery statute, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Carol Gillam.

She said the indictments represent only the second time that the 81-year-old law has been used in Southern California.

“This is a very significant case that involves very serious violations of people’s human rights,” Gillam said.

Robert M. Talcott, the attorney for Ives, said late Tuesday that he had not seen the indictment but that if it is similar to the original complaint “then we are very disappointed that the government is proceeding against Mr. Ives.

“When all the facts are set forth, our client will be exonerated,” Talcott said.

The indictment alleges that Ives lured the workers to his 50-acre Somis compound with promises of “good money,” then would not allow them to leave until they paid $435 to a smuggler who brought them to the United States.

Even after those debts were paid, however, workers were ordered not to leave the compound or they would be fired and immigration agents alerted, the indictment alleges.

Talcott has maintained that even if some illegalities took place at the Somis ranch, Ives was not aware of them.

But the indictment alleges that Ives not only oversaw the ranch operation on a daily basis, but that on at least one occasion he personally recruited an illegal worker. He also allegedly told another worker that he could not leave the ranch until his smuggling fees were paid.

While at the ranch, the workers received only a fraction of the $4.25-per-hour minimum wage while toiling 16 hours a day, and they were required to buy food and supplies from a company store at inflated prices, the indictment says.

“As a result of these deductions, the alien workers often received net pay for over 160 hours of work in a 15-day period of less than $100, and in some cases, actually no pay, because the deductions exceeded the amount of the paycheck,” the indictment says.

In a charge not included in the original complaint, the indictment alleges that ranch foremen beat the workers to keep them in line.

The foremen would “push, shove, pinch, shout at, intimidate and beat the alien workers throughout the workday, and constantly remind the alien workers that they could not leave the Griffith Ives ranch until their debts were paid off,” the indictment says.

One worker was allegedly beaten so severely that he received permanent head and back injuries.

In that case, the indictment alleges that Ives refused to pay for medical treatment in this country, instead giving the worker $100 toward the costs of treatment in Mexico. Other workers allegedly collected about $300 to help the laborer pay his bills.

Charges are based on ranch documents and allegations leveled by more than 20 former Ives ranch workers, Gillam said.

Charged along with Ives, Lnu and Singh are Pedro Pinzon and Rony Havive, both 30, Alvaro Ruiz, 39, Josue David Pinzon, 23, and the alleged smuggler, Mauro Casares, 64.