Destin King labor trafficking case ( 2008 ). Labor trafficking is not confined to Florida’s agricultural sector, but is increasingly found in Florida’s hospitality and tourism industries as well. The Florida Panhandle was the location of a criminal investigation that culminated in the 2008 conviction of both U.S. citizen Justin King and a number of Russian nationals for smuggling aliens to work in Florida resorts.
The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office had for several years been scrutinizing patterns of labor trafficking in the area of Destin and Fort Walton Beach. Beginning as early as 1999, Russian nationals Anna Czerwien, Aleksander Berman, and Stan Finkel began supplying young Eastern European men and women to Panhandle resorts for janitorial and maid services. Operating under the name of Eurohouse Holding Corporation, they brought the Eastern European workers to the Florida Panhandle for short term work on temporary J-1 or H-2B visas. The vast majority of the workers were females between the ages of 19 and 23. Moreover, most were also students who were intent upon returning after several months to their homes in Eastern Europe to continue their studies.
Many had been promised non-existent jobs when they were recruited in their home countries. Upon their arrival in the Florida Panhandle, they were instead employed for substandard wages 28 by Eurohouse and assigned to work in local hotels and resorts. Eurohouse operated as a labor subcontractor, providing services to hotels such as the Sandestin Hilton. Eurohouse was able to offer the “low bid” on labor contracts precisely because they did not pay federal minimum wages to their employees. They further charged the students between $1500 and $2500 each for visa processing, job placement, and transportation fees. In addition, the young workers were charged to stay 15 to 20 persons per condominium throughout a variety of locations throughout the Panhandle. Enforcement was carried out by verbal abuse, threats of violence, and threats of fines or non-payment of wages. Almost all the young workers had a plane ticket allowing them to return to their home countries at the end of the summer tourism season, but they would have incurred substantial costs were they to try to fly home at an earlier date. The labor trafficking conspiracy overall proved lucrative and seemingly insulated from law enforcement oversight: because the victims were exploited on a temporary basis, they most often simply chose to return home at the end of the summer without reporting the exploitation or participating in an investigation.
This pattern finally changed in 2003 with the exploitation of a group of foreign nationals predominantly from Bulgaria and Rumania. With their assistance, the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office discovered a further criminal conspiracy that involved even more extensive visa fraud and alien smuggling on the part of Eurohouse officials. The ensuing investigation also revealed that U.S. citizen Justin King was employed as the front man for Eurohouse, negotiating new contracts with hotel owners and communicating with state and federal agencies to further the conspiracy. As part of his role in the criminal operation, King submitted over a thousand fraudulent visa applications. King and his co-conspirators were found to have brought in over 200 foreign nationals to work as hotel housekeepers through the use of these illegally-obtained visas.
Evidence presented at trial showed that King and his co-conspirators had used forged hotel letterheads to further their scam. Most of the foreign national workers brought in through the fraudulent visa scheme were eventually contracted out to hotels and resorts other than those 29 who had supposedly sponsored them for their visa. Finally, it was revealed that when the federal government had become suspicious and stopped issuing visas to Eurohouse, King and the other defendants had continued their fraudulent activity under the guise of a new labor contracting company called Woland. King was convicted on seven counts of visa fraud and alien smuggling and sentenced to 41 months in prison. Czerwien, Berman, and Finkel received respective sentences of 18, 23, and 12 months in prison. The defendants were also found to be liable for joint forfeiture of $1 million.
Curiously, human trafficking charges were not a part of the prosecution. The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida would later note that the criminal behavior had in fact included all the elements that would have established forced labor under Title 18 Section 1589 (in particular, the use of labor obtained through false promises, through threats of serious harm, or through abuse of law or of legal process—i.e., threats of deportation).
The King labor trafficking case is a very clear indicator of the degree to which forced labor and abusive labor practices may have permeated the Florida hotel and tourism industries in recent years. The Eurohouse investigation furthermore revealed that numerous companies acting as “temp labor” staffing agencies are operating throughout Florida and the nation. Many of these agencies are owned and operated by people from Eastern Europe (Poland, and the Czech Republic) or states of the former Soviet Union (Estonia, Russia, and Uzbekistan). There appears to be a high degree of interconnectivity between the companies, strong indicators of organized crime, and similar patterns of exploitation practiced by the suspect companies.
Ongoing investigations of labor trafficking throughout Florida also demonstrate that U.S. citizens are increasingly involved in the exploitative practices. They operate what have been referred to as “quasi-legitimate companies” relying once again on the labor of foreign nationals who arrive on J-1 or H-2B visas. These labor leasing companies are recruiting laborers from countries not traditionally associated with providing workers for Florida’s hospitality industries: Argentina, Costa Rica, Jamaica, the Philippines, and Brazil. The companies increasingly lease 30 workers on a weekly or monthly basis to hotels, resorts, construction companies, golf courses, condominium rental properties, restaurants, and souvenir/tee-shirt shops.
Investigations to date indicate that this is a multi-million dollar a year business in Florida alone and is growing. It is also a business that is essentially unregulated. Because they are for the most part unlicensed, these labor leasing companies in Florida are not subject to DBPR investigations or sanctions. The Florida Labor Pool Act (Chapter 448 FSS) addresses day laborers, but does not cover seasonal workers. A similar gap exists in Florida Migrant Labor laws—Chapter 450 FSS addresses temporary agricultural laborers but there is no corresponding Florida law to protect temporary workers in the hospitality industry. These gaps are an invitation for exploitative labor practices, and need to be redressed immediately by legislative and regulatory responses. Hundreds of victims are estimated to be exploited annually in this manner throughout Florida.