Palm Beach restaurant worker charged with labor trafficking of 17-year-old girl

A 17-year-old girl was smuggled from Guatemala across the U.S. border over a harrowing 10-day period.

If she had known what awaited her after arriving in the United States, she would not have made the trip, she later told investigators.

A relative of the teen, a 40-year-old West Palm Beach woman, was arrested by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office’s Human Exploitation and Trafficking Unit while she was working at a Worth Avenue restaurant Thursday afternoon. Investigators charged the woman with labor trafficking of a minor and child neglect without serious bodily harm. The woman is being held without bail at the Palm Beach County Jail, according to court documents.

The Palm Beach Daily News is not naming the woman or the restaurant to protect the teen’s privacy.

The sheriff’s office began investigating the teen’s treatment last year after she reported it to the state Department of Children and Families, according to an arrest report.

The girl told PBSO investigators that she was smuggled from Guatemala to the U.S.-Mexico border, where she was taken into custody by U.S. Border Patrol agents. While in custody (the arrest report does not mention where she was held), the teen first contacted the woman, whose relationship with the teen was redacted from the report released by the Palm Beach County Clerk’s Office.

Border Patrol agents asked if the woman was willing to sponsor the teen as an unaccompanied minor entering the United States, and the woman said yes, according to the arrest report.

The two had not met before the teenager arrived in the United States. They quickly met in person when the teenager arrived on June 4, 2023, at Palm Beach International Airport. There, investigators said, the woman and her three children, ages 13 to 17, picked up the teenager and took her to their home in West Palm Beach.

Investigators said the teen stayed there for three to four months, while being forced to work and pay for rent, food, a couch to sleep on, medical care — all the “basic necessities of life” that are required by state law to be provided to minors, according to the arrest report.

The teen was forced to pay $470 a month in rent, due on the 30th of each month, the report said. The woman also charged the girl $60 each Sunday for food, the cost of her cellphone bill and $500 for a couch for the teen to sleep on in the family living room, investigators said.

The woman also charged the teen $100 for fake documents so he could work and $120 for work uniforms, the report said.

When the teenager moved in with the woman, she said she wanted to enroll in school. It is unclear whether that is what happened.

The arrest report states that within two weeks, the woman asked the teenager to work. When a social worker from the Federal Office of Refugee Resettlement came to check on the teenager, she told the woman that the teenager could not work and that she could not provide for the teenager to meet his basic needs, the report said.

Instead, the woman found a job for the teenager, where she could work using the fake documents. The teenager was fired from the first job because the company entered a slump, so the woman found a new job for the girl, investigators said.

“When asked if the suspect forced her to work, the minor victim stated that he did not directly force or threaten her to work, but she felt that the suspect indirectly forced her and gave up her initial plan to go to school when he imposed all the debts on her so that she could live at home,” the arrest report states.

Meanwhile, the teen was sick and asked to see a doctor. She told investigators that the woman told her she would have to pay out of pocket to see a doctor, but that she would not cover the cost.

The teenager went to work at a restaurant and was reluctant to tell investigators the name of the business because it provided her with food, the report said.

This was especially important for the teen because the woman began restricting the girl’s access to food after she reported it to DCF and law enforcement, the report said.

After the teen reported the situation to DCF, the woman placed a camera in the girl’s living space, making the teen even more uncomfortable, investigators said.

“The suspect also allegedly told the minor victim that the welfare checks conducted by ORR caseworkers were becoming burdensome,” investigators wrote. “The suspect demanded that the minor victim change her work schedule to prevent the caseworker from discovering that the minor was in fact working.”

Around that time, the teen bought a bicycle to ride to and from work because the woman told her she would charge her for gas, the report said. The girl’s work hours were about 3 p.m. to midnight, and she told investigators she was sometimes afraid to leave work so late and ride her bike home in the dark, in a city and country she didn’t know.

During her interview with investigators, the girl said that if she had known she would have to pay that much money to be able to live in the United States, she would have waited to make the trip. She cried and said she felt trapped and didn’t know what to do, which is why she reached out to DCF for help, according to the report.

“The minor victim categorically stated that if the above conditions had been known to her prior to arriving in the United States, she would not have made the journey simply to be exploited and abused in America,” investigators wrote.

As of September 14, 2023, the girl was removed from the woman’s custody while PBSO investigated her care.

On March 26, investigators went to the victim’s home, where she confirmed some of the girl’s statements to police. When asked where the girl slept, she first took investigators to a room with two beds and said the girl slept in one of them, but later recanted, the report said.

The woman confirmed that she knew the girl was under 18. Much of what the woman told investigators during that visit to her home is redacted from the report.

Investigators said they found the teenager had been exploited, threatened with work or eviction from the home and ordered to pay for daily necessities.

“Furthermore, the difference between the manner in which the suspect demanded payment for the items from the minor victim and from her own children, who were the same age, makes her actions even more egregious and malicious,” investigators wrote. “At no time did the suspect appear to regret her actions.”

When the woman was arrested Thursday in Palm Beach, PBSO investigators were serving a subpoena on the business where she works to receive employment records, the sheriff’s office said.

If you believe a child is being abused, neglected or exploited, call the Florida Department of Children and Families’ 24-hour hotline at 800-962-2873.

Kristina Webb is a reporter for the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. She can be reached at kwebb@pbdailynews.com. Subscribe today to Support our journalism.

This article was originally published on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach restaurant worker charged with labor trafficking of minor