5-year sentence for man in Ohio slave labor case
Source: Associated Press
5-year sentence for man in Ohio slave labor case
| March 13, 2014 | Updated: March 13, 2014 7:22pm
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (AP) — A judge on Thursday handed a five-year prison term to the first of four people sentenced for participating in the enslavement of a mentally disabled woman held for two years with her young child in northeast Ohio.
Daniel Brown pleaded guilty last year to a single conspiracy charge and agreed to cooperate with the investigation. He was sentenced by Judge Benita Pearson in federal court in Youngstown.
Brown, 34, and three others were charged in connection with the enslavement and beating of the woman. Prosecutors said she was recruited and targeted along with her daughter as part of a plot to obtain the woman's government benefits and steal her pain medication.
Prosecutors also contend the woman was hit badly enough to require a hospital visit for pain medicine, which the defendants then took from her. They said the woman was forced to use her public assistance money to buy groceries and cigarettes for the defendants.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/5-year-sentence-for-man-in-Ohio-slave-labor-case-5313794.php
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Here's a summary of how they behaved toward this poor woman:
Disabled woman, child held captive with snakes in US
World | Agence France-Presse | Updated: June 19, 2013 08:45 IST
Chicago: A mentally disabled woman and her daughter were forced to live in an Ohio basement with snakes and pit bulls and were treated like slaves for more than two years, US prosecutors said Tuesday.
The case came to light after the woman was caught stealing a candy bar and told police she'd rather go to jail than go home because her roommates "were mean to her."
Three of her tormentors were arrested on human trafficking charges after a lengthy investigation.
"We are yet again reminded that modern-day slavery exists all around us," said Steven Dettelbach, US Attorney for the northern district of Ohio.
"The victims in this case endured violence, threats, sub-human living conditions and other horrific acts."
The charges come a month after three young women who had been held captive for a decade were discovered in a house in Cleveland, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of the small town where the disabled woman was allegedly enslaved.
The woman, who was not named, was made to stay with repeated threats that her daughter -- who is now five or six -- would be harmed or taken away from her if she didn't do as she was told, prosecutors said.
The woman and her daughter were initially forced to sleep on a cement floor in a locked basement room that also housed a roaming iguana.
They were repeatedly beaten, threatened with the pit bulls and the snakes and watched with a baby monitor to make sure the woman wouldn't untie her daughter's bound hands or sneak some food or water to the girl.
On at least three occasions the woman was badly injured so that she could get prescription pain killers for her roommates: Jordie Callahan, 26 and Jessica Hunt, 31.
They also shaved her head into a mohawk and wrote derogatory words on her face and chest with a permanent marker at one point, charging papers said. The girl was often kept bound and locked in a room and wouldn't be let out to use the bathroom until her mother was finished with housework.
More:
http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/disabled-woman-child-held-captive-with-snakes-in-us-381355
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3 jailed pending trial in Ohio slave labor case
By THOMAS J. SHEERAN
— Jun. 24, 2013 7:39 PM EDT
Daniel Brown, Jordie Callahan, Jessica Hunt, Dezerah Silsby
This combination of undated photos released by the Ashland County Sheriff's Office shows, from left, Daniel Brown, Jordie L. Callahan, Jessica L. Hunt, and Dezerah Silsby, who are accused of enslaving a mentally disabled woman and her daughter. A federal magistrate judge on Monday, June 24, 2013 ruled that there’s enough evidence against them to send the case before a grand jury. Judge Nancy Vecchiarelli made the ruling against Callahan and Hunt in the case and ordered them locked up pending trial. Brown skipped a chance to ask for pretrial release, and Silsby was freed last week to await trial. (AP Photo/Ashland County Sheriffs Office, File)
CLEVELAND (AP) — Three people accused of enslaving a mentally disabled woman and her child will be locked up in Ohio while awaiting trial.
One defendant decided not to seek bond Monday. A federal magistrate judge in Cleveland ordered two co-defendants jailed, saying they're dangers to the community.
A fourth co-defendant is pregnant and was allowed last week to remain free pending trial. The government won't comment on why she was treated differently.
The Ashland case now goes before a federal grand jury.
The defendants are charged with enslaving the woman for two years, threatening her, beating her and making her do housework.
The mother of one defendant calls the allegations lies. She says the woman was friends with her son and another defendant and they offered her a place to live.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/3-jailed-pending-trial-ohio-slave-labor-case
