Filipino couple sentenced in US human trafficking scheme

A Filipino man and wife, who admitted to smuggling immigrants from the Philippines and forcing them to work in the couple’s elder-care business in Paso Robles, were sentenced to 18 months in federal prison on Monday, February 13.

Along with the prison sentence, United States District Judge Audrey B. Collins, also ordered Maximino “Max” Morales, 46, and his wife, Melinda Morales, 48, to pay $600,000 in restitution to the nine Filipino victims who were not properly paid for the work they performed.

“The Filipino victims in this case were lured to the United States with false promises and were essentially performing slave labor,” US Attorney André Birotte Jr. said in a statement.

“We are committed to protecting the basic civil rights of all people, no matter their status in the United States,” he added.

The Moraleses, who are naturalized US citizens from the Philippines, were arrested in 2010 and pleaded guilty the following year, to conspiracy to harbor illegal immigrants.

According to the US Attorney’s Office, the Moraleses operated four elder-care facilities in Paso Robles, a small city in Central California about three hours north of Los Angeles.

Prosecutors said the couple admitted to recruiting Filipino nationals to come to the US with promises of work as live-in caregivers.

The couple worked with a co-conspirator in the Philippines to help the Filipino victims obtain phony travel visas.

After they arrived, the Filipino victims worked as caregivers, at times in 24-hour shifts in one of the elder care residential facilities for less than minimum wage, according to plea agreements filed in this case.

The Filipino victims also lived in the care facilities. Some of them slept in a closet, on a sofa, and in a walled-off portion of an unheated, attached garage, according to the plea agreement.

The victims’ pay was credited against the “debt” they purportedly owed, and they were told that police or immigration authorities would be summoned if they attempted to leave, prosecutors said.

According to the affidavit, the FBI launched an investigation in 2009, after two of the Filipino victims confided their plight to a family member of one of the patients at the care home, who then notified the FBI. Joseph Pimentel/AJPress