Exploiters of Deaf Mexicans Sentenced
A federal judge in Brooklyn sentenced four Mexicans on Friday to prison terms ranging from 1 1/2 to three years for their involvement in a ring that brought deaf Mexicans into the country illegally and used them as slave labor.
Norma Alcantara, 37, and Francisco Duenas-Olveras, 29, who prosecutors said originated the idea of using the immigrants to sell key chains in New York and Chicago, were each sentenced to three years in prison and were ordered to pay $300,000 restitution between them, said prosecutor Sanford Cohen.
Each pleaded guilty in December to a single charge of conspiring to harbor illegal immigrants, he said.
Juan Antonio Limon, 22, who pleaded guilty to a conspiracy-to-harbor charge, was sentenced to two years and three months in prison.
Carlos Rivera Lozano, 22, who was involved in smuggling workers through California and pleaded guilty to harboring illegal immigrants, was sentenced to a year and a half in prison.
The forced-labor ring was discovered July 19 when New York police found 57 immigrants, most of them deaf, in squalid conditions.
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