Mother and Daughter Charged with Forced Labor in the District of Puerto Rico

A federal grand jury in the District of Puerto Rico returned an indictment charging Luz Maria Peña Lopez, 55, and her daughter, Tatiana Correa Peña, 36, of Carolina, Puerto Rico, with forced labor and conspiracy to commit forced labor, announced Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and United States Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico W. Stephen Muldrow.  Peña Lopez was also charged with document servitude, and Peña Lopez’s husband, Enrique Gutierrez Rivera, 54, a municipal police officer in Carolina, Puerto Rico, was charged with misprision of a felony related to his knowledge, failure to report, and concealment of his co-defendants’ misuse of the victim’s Social Security benefits.  The three defendants were placed under arrest early this morning.

According to the indictment, defendants Peña Lopez and Correa Peña used physical beatings, physical restraint, threats of violence, document servitude, isolation, denial of basic hygiene and medical care, and the provision of drugs and/or unprescribed medication to force the victim—an intellectually disabled adult woman—to panhandle for money, engage in criminal and fraudulent activities for their financial benefit, and perform domestic labor in their shared residence.  Defendants Peña Lopez and Correa Peña also converted the victim’s monthly Social Security disability benefits for their own personal use.

“The Justice Department condemns the appalling abuse and forced labor inflicted on this disabled victim, as alleged in this indictment, and we are committed to ensuring the perpetrators face the full consequences of the law,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.

The indictment specifically notes that as part of their coercive scheme to compel the victim’s labor, defendants Peña Lopez and Correa Peña threatened the victim with violence and death; physically beat the victim, sometimes using objects such as belts, broomsticks, and cables; restricted the victim’s ability to leave the residence by forcing her to sleep in a space formerly used to house goats and roosters, at times locking her inside overnight; and used the victim’s Social Security disability benefits for their own personal use, denying those funds to the victim for even basic hygiene items such as clothes, toothbrushes, deodorant, and sanitary pads.

The maximum penalty for the offense of forced labor is 20 years in federal prison.  The maximum penalty for misprision of a felony is three years. 

The case is being investigated by the FBI.  It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Daynelle Alverez and Trial Attorney Jessica Arco of the Civil Rights Division’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit.

Anyone who believes they may have relevant information to share about this case is asked to contact the FBI Field Office at 1-787-987-6500.

If you or someone you know is a victim of human trafficking, please call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.