Judge Alters Flower Rancher’s Term in Slavery Case

A Ventura County flower rancher originally charged with enslaving Mexican laborers will spend no time in prison after a change in sentencing by a federal judge who found that incarceration would cost dozens more farm workers their jobs.

U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall in Los Angeles changed the three-year prison sentence of Edwin M. Ives, 57, to one year in a halfway house and two years of house arrest under electronic surveillance. Ives has remained free pending a requested change of sentence.

Ives, who employs up to 100 workers at his 50-acre Somis compound, has paid most of the $1.5 million in restitution ordered by the court.

Ives pleaded guilty to seven criminal violations of labor and immigration law, including transporting and harboring illegal immigrants and payment of substandard wages. However, Marshall said she had seen no evidence of slavery, extortion or racketeering by Ives--charges that brought the case notoriety as the largest slavery prosecution in U.S. history.

Marshall, in the Monday decision, apparently embraced defense arguments that without Ives his ranch would founder under a deepening depression in the ornamental flower business.