STAR-ADVERTISER / 2010
Defendant Alec Sou, pictured, and his brother, Mike Sou, are facing charges that they imported farm laborers from Thailand under false pretenses. Jury selection in their trial is set to begin Wednesday.
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Statements that Aloun Farm owners Alec and Mike Sou gave federal prosecutors and law enforcement officials after their plea agreements last year can be used to impeach any future testimony they give in a human-trafficking case, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway ruled last week that the government can use statements the Sou brothers made after their guilty pleas in January 2010. She affirmed her ruling Monday after the Sous asked her to reconsider.
The statements were required of the Sous under their plea agreements, which Mollway rejected last September.
According to waivers the Sous signed last year, the government can use the statements to cross-examine or rebut anything the brothers might say differently, should they testify.
Those statements are separate from admissions made as part of the plea agreements, which the government cannot use.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin Wednesday.
The Sou brothers are facing charges that they imported 44 impoverished farm laborers from Thailand in 2004 under false pretenses, had their passports confiscated when they arrived, underpaid them, restricted their movements and forced them to live in crowded or substandard housing. They also face charges that they harbored workers whose visas had expired and obstructed their own prosecutions.
In 2003, Aloun Farm hired workers from Los Angeles-based labor contracting company Global Horizons Manpower Inc.
Global Horizons officers and employees, including owner Mordechai Yosef Orian, are scheduled to stand trial in February in what the government says is the largest case of human trafficking ever prosecuted in the U.S. They are accused of exploiting about 600 impoverished farmworkers from Thailand by shuttling them back and forth across the country, including to Hawaii, to live and work under oppressive conditions.
