Nesly Mwarecheong, Labor Trafficking, Iowa 2023

Nesly Mwarecheong, 46, and Bertino Weires, 51, residents of the United States and citizens of the Federated States of Micronesia, were found guilty of labor trafficking in federal court in Des Moines, Iowa.

The defendants pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawful conduct with respect to documents in furtherance of trafficking or forced labor. A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Iowa had previously returned a five-count indictment against the defendants for recruiting two young men from Micronesia to come to the United States for the purpose of coercing their labor in a meat processing plant for the defendants’ financial gain.

According to their plea agreements, the defendants convinced the two victims to leave their homes in Micronesia in December 2019 and travel to the United States by promising them they could work in the United States and send money back to their families.

Once in the United States, the defendants confiscated the victims’ passports and obtained jobs for them at a meat processing plant in Ottumwa, Iowa. Each week, the defendants took the victims to cash their paychecks before seizing almost the entire amount and leaving the victims with only $20 each week.

The defendants used various means to compel the victims’ labor and services, including confiscating the victims’ passports and social security cards, imposing debts on them, limiting and monitoring their communication with family, physically and socially isolating them and creating a system of total financial dependence on the defendants.

Nesly Mwarecheong and Bertino Weires are scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Chief Judge Stephanie M. Rose on February 15. The defendants face a maximum statutory penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The sentence will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which consider a number of variables.

As part of the defendants’ plea, they have agreed to pay nearly $70,000 in restitution to the victims. The case was investigated by Investigator Jeremy Tosh of the Ottumwa Police Department and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Virginia Bruner and Ryan Leemkuil for the Southern District of Iowa and Trial Attorney Christina Randall-James of the Civil Rights Division’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit.

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