An Oregon mom and daughter have been indicted by the Department of Justice on human trafficking and forced labor charges. The pair allegedly put three Haitians, including a minor, in "indentured servitude" at an adult care home they owned and operated in Tigard, a city located southwest of Portland, according to a press release from the Justice Department.
Marie Gertrude Jean Valmont, 66, and Yolandita Marie Andre, 30, are accused of using violence and threats to force their victims to work long hours for little or no pay. The seven-count indictment charges both of them with conspiring with one another to commit forced labor, committing forced labor, and benefitting from forced labor.
Court documents state that Valmont and Andre, the owners and operators of Velida's Care Home in Tigard, began their human trafficking scheme in Sept. 2023, when they convinced two adults and a child from Haiti to travel to the United States to work at their care home.
After arriving in the Portland area, the victims were immediately taken to Velida's where they were allegedly forced to work long, arduous 17-hour days for little or no pay. Valmont and Andre are alleged to have taken the victims' immigration paperwork and forbade them from leaving Velida's under any circumstances. Additionally, Valmont is alleged to have thrown items at the victims, threatened to send them back to Haiti and have them killed, and threatened to call police to make false theft allegations against them, according to the indictment.
I am not taking this lightly because it does happen however there’s been a lot of boo hoo sad stories about Haitians in the news lately , wondering if this is to get the public to accept and feel sorry for the ones here that have been causing havoc ! This is the third story I read ! I realize there are good and bad in everything out there !
It was a mother and daughter scheme, the mother from Haiti and the daughter from the Dominican Republic. They moved to the USA ten years ago and became USA citizens, apparently in name only. Who knows, perhaps they were given the same treatment when they first came to the States.