HONOLULU — A federal judge is granting a $1 million bail for the CEO of a labor recruiting company accused of importing and exploiting 400 workers from Thailand. Forty-five-year-old Mordechai Orian, head of Los Angeles-based Global Horizons Manpower Inc., was
HONOLULU — A federal judge is granting a $1 million bail for the CEO of a labor recruiting company accused of importing and exploiting 400 workers from Thailand.
Forty-five-year-old Mordechai Orian, head of Los Angeles-based Global Horizons Manpower Inc., was ordered to be held Wednesday in federal custody until he can raise the money.
KITV reports that federal prosecutors claim Orian, an Israeli national, is a flight risk. They plan to appeal.
Orian is accused in the largest human-trafficking case charged in U.S. history.
He and five other people were indicted last week on charges that he lured the workers with false promises of lucrative jobs, then confiscated their passports, failed to honor their employment contracts and threatened to deport them.
Kaua‘i Coffee said in court documents that the contracting company furnished farm workers from Thailand for its operations between November 2004 and June 2006.
Between 2006 and 2009, 17 farm workers filed discrimination charges with the EEOC, naming Kaua‘i Coffee as their employer.
In the EEOC charges, workers have said they have been harassed, subjected to different terms and conditions of employment, and intimidated in all aspects with Global Horizon due to their national origin.
Kaua‘i Coffee said in the complaint that it denies engaging in any of the alleged unlawful actions, and that none of the EEOC charges contain allegations of wrongdoing by the local company.
See an upcoming edition of The Garden Island for more details on how the case relates to Kaua‘i.
