Man In Hawaii Gets 26 Yrs For Forced Labor Of Tongan Men
HONOLULU (AP)--A man convicted of smuggling Tongans into the country and forcing them to work for his landscaping and construction businesses was sentenced Friday to 26 years in prison.
Lueleni Fetongi Maka, a Tongan national who lives in the United States as a permanent resident, was convicted in December 2004 of 34 counts, including human trafficking, involuntary servitude and forced labor.
Between May 2001 and January 2003, Maka used legitimate passports belonging to Hawaii residents who resembled the seven Tongan men who were smuggled. The men, who worked from sunup to sundown at least six days a week, were housed in Nanakuli where Maka operated a pig farm.
Maka, 54, of Waipahu, paid his victims between $40 and $100 a week and sometimes nothing at all, according to court testimony.
Witnesses described the pig farm as squalid, with no indoor plumbing in the living area. There was often no food, and the men sometimes resorted to killing stray dogs to eat, prosecutors said.
The victims and witnesses also testified that when the men didn't work hard enough, Maka beat them with his fists and objects, including pieces of lumber and a long metal spike.
Tonga is an archipelago in the South Pacific, east of Australia.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 29, 2006 01:32 ET (05:32 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.- - 01 32 AM EDT 04-29-06 |
